Amador County – Ione City Council in a special meeting Wednesday discussed its wastewater project, which would start with secondary treatment, but may need upgraded, per state regulators.

Castle Oaks’ Dominic Atlan said he saw two problems with the Seepage Plan. One was that there is no money in it if the city needs to expand. He also wondered about the cost to run a plant year-round, and said he would like to get more time from the Regional Board.

Atlan said he didn’t care what the city does and just wanted it to have better treatment. And if the secondary plans don’t work, they will have to come back in three years and build a tertiary level plant.

Atlan said there are a lot of “what ifs” and the Regional Board wants us to recycle, but they don’t give us any money. He said: “I hope this thing works, but what if it doesn’t? We have to decide in probably 30 days,” and building a tertiary plant would cost another $1.3 million dollars, and there is no money to expand the existing tertiary plant.

Councilman Lloyd Oneto said “I think Phase 2 is to go to tertiary.” Atlan said “it kind of revolves around whether they are going to give you an extension or not. Mayor Ron Smylie said: “If it fails, then we’ll go to Plan B.”

Jim Scully, a neighbor of the city storage ponds, said before you get too excited about the tertiary plan, remember there were two other plans that were accepted by the Regional Board. One had “22 acres of additional storage ponds,” accepted regionally but rejected by another level of regulators. Scully said: “Yeah you’re under but big deal,” and until you get a permit, you can’t move forward.

City Attorney James Maynard said the city needs to dialog with the Regional Board as they go through these things. Oneto said he attended the meeting with the Regional Board and told them he was disappointed, and the city should have done something 10 years ago about the sewer problems. Oneto said he had not known about city money issues and told the Board he wants to work with them to get through the problems. He said City Manager Jeff Butzlaff will go back to Shasta, and Maynard will go back to Sacramento, “but we will still be here with our children and grandchildren paying for it.”

Oneto said: “I would have said something in private but after I read your newspaper I wanted to go strangle somebody and I had to calm down.” Oneto said Butzlaff and the reporter were not there, and after he spoke, he left the room and did not hear Scully speak to the Regional Board, and did not read what he submitted.

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.