With the revelation this week that Mule Creek State Prison is producing waste water flows at a rate of over 200,000 gallons more per day than expected. A joint meeting between the City of Ione, the Amador Regional Sanitation Authority and Mule Creek representatives this week puts the current agreement between the three entities in limbo. Wednesday afternoon the representatives, including the Ione City Council, met to discuss the agreement approved by the Ione City Council on March 13th.

Monday night the Sutter Creek city council received a final staff report on the Sutter Creek wastewater treatment plant and regional wastewater plans. City Manager Rob Duke presented the council with findings from a study which analyzed the possibilities of three options for a regional wastewater solution. Option one was to build a new regional plant in Martel. The estimated completion date for a Martel wastewater plant would be approximately in March of 2013. Rob Duke told the council that this timeline would be excruciatingly close to overlapping with an agreement between ARSA and the City of Ione which allows ARSA capacity in Ione’s plant until January of 2014.

The Jackson Hills Golf Course Community will appear before the Planning Commission tonight. The much debated project has been in the works for over 5 years. The last time the project appeared before the Commission they asked that staff develop facts and findings for the project and suggested that a special meeting be held to solely discuss Jackson Hills. Staff is expected to return with their findings of fact and the Commission could possibly make their recommendation to the City Council as to whether or not to approve the project. According to the developer, New Faze Development, the Jackson Hills project is the result of a community-oriented planning process that will have economic contributions and long term tax benefits to Jackson as well as provide a source of funding for community road improvements, schools, utilities, and fire and police protection. However, members in the community are worried about the impacts that a development of this size may have on the City of Jackson and its infrastructure. Most mentioned concerns have been the amount of traffic this development will bring, its affect on the current sewer situation, as well as the concern that Jackson Hills will not be paying for its impacts on the local community. The Community will have an opportunity tonight to have all of their concerns addressed by both the Developer New Faze Development and the Commission. The meeting begins at 6pm.

According to the Compact between the Buena Vista tribe of Me-Wuk Indians and the state of California the tribe is required in their Tribal Environmental Impact Report to describe reasonable alternatives to the project, which the tribe has named the Flying Cloud Casino. Currently, the tribe is proposing phasing in a casino and hotel in 3 stages ending the process with a nearly 72,000 sq foot facility with 2000 slot machines and 80 gaming tables.

The controversy over nearly 6 million dollars in traffic mitigation fees is now a saga as the Supervisors once again heard the appeal of those fees by the developers, Jack Stewart and Phil Longacre. Although it was clarified that the fees will be lower than the 6 million dollars discussed, the actual fees have yet to be determined.  The proposal is to convert the zoning of the property from a residential zoning to a special zoning that would allow for multiple commercial, residential and light industrial uses on 3.6 acres in Pine Grove. The developers plan to develop a 12 unit business condo type complex to serve the needs of upcountry residents. The catch- almost 6 million dollars in traffic mitigation fees required from the developers under the new Regional Traffic Plan adopted by the Supervisors last April. This is the first project, since that time, which has triggered the “Tier 2” fees assessed when a project asks for further entitlement under current zoning restrictions.

The Amador Water Agency is currently discussing a grand plan to expand the Tanner Waste Water Plant in Sutter Creek. In late 2007, the Board voted to hire a consulting firm, Stantec, to assist with the design of an ambitious new water treatment plant project. The Agency is currently in the preliminary design phase of the project In order for the plan to become a reality; the AWA has set forth specific goals that must be met, including minimizing the impacts to the Agency’s existing customers during construction and staying within a budget of 21 million dollars for initial improvements. The result would be a highly efficient and expandable membrane treatment plant. The plan also includes a gradual phase-out of the existing Ione Plant. The Tanner Plant is proposed on a 44 acre parcel adjacent to the existing plant in Sutter Creek.

The plant will initially be built to treat a capacity of 8 million gallons per day. Agency staff are designing the project to meet the more stringent California Department of Public Health regulations, as well as looking to lower long-term operation and maintenance costs. With increasingly strict energy demands throughout the state many companies have begun to pursue green energy options. Stantec, an “innovator” in sustainable designs, has applied the green design approaches to a number of other treatment projects. The Agency realizes that there are many apparent benefits for “going green” with the project, including lower energy and operation costs, more effective use of materials, and improved operability. A tentative timeline for the project anticipates the final preliminary design to be finished by May of 2008. The project will require a full environmental review process so construction is not expected to begin until late 2009. 

The Jackson City Council and Planning Commission held a joint meeting Monday night to review the recent changes to the Jackson Draft Land Use Element.  Changes to the document were made from a compilation of recommendations from local organizations and public comments from prior city council meetings. One important section of the element that was significantly updated concerned growth within the city.  The document now states that “growth in the City of Jackson shall occur only if new development adequately mitigates its environmental impacts, addresses housing availability and affordability needs, and respects open space resources…”  This new update to the land use element is a considerable improvement over the previous statement, which simply referred to growth in Jackson that “is not detrimental to its neighborhoods.”  Concerned Citizens of Jackson, a local government watchdog group, has been involved with the update process and seemed pleased with the updates made to the element.

The usability of local parks was also updated in the element. The proposed land use element requires that developers “shall provide park areas within reasonable walking distance to all residences.” Terri Works posed the question of whether these “pocket parks” were really useful as compared to a larger, regional park that could be used by the community. Works referred to the neighborhood park in the Woodside development behind Raley’s, saying they “don’t seem really useful.” Jointly, the council and the commission decided to modify that rule to include only those developments with eight or more units and extend the walking time to 10 minutes.

In a statement issued yesterday, County Administrative Officer Terri Daly announced that the Board of Supervisors did not submit a last-and-best final offer to the tribe by the deadline of March 18th at midnight. As a result, the Board will not participate in any arbitration proceedings. The Board’s deadlocked vote on March 11th resulted in the Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians issuing the seven-day notice to terminate negotiations. Because of the Board’s continued stalemate, they could not come to a decision by Tuesday night’s deadline. “At this time, the Tribe has indicated it will proceed with the binding arbitration process. A decision by an arbitrator assigned by the American Arbitration Association could be made within 30-90 days from today,” said Daly.

 A special joint meeting between the Board of Supervisors and the Amador Water Agency, or AWA, was held yesterday at the County Offices. The meeting was open to the public. The two parties discussed- but did not take any action -on a number of water and wastewater matters currently affecting the county. Supervisor Richard Forster was present and played “host” throughout the proceedings. Matters pertaining to water issues included discussion of new developments, the status of the water supply for Carbondale Industrial Park, the water supply pipeline to the City of Plymouth, and the proposed Wild and Scenic River designation for the Mokelumne River.

Debbie Dunn was on hand to represent the Foothill Conservancy, which has been pushing for the Mokelumne’s Wild and Scenic designation. Pros and Cons for Wild and Scenic status  were discussed, including the relative ease or difficulty such a designation would make for the Water Agency in implementing future regulations upon that portion of  the river. In reference to wastewater issues, AWA general manager Jim Abercrombie talked about the capacity of the Sutter Creek Plant. There was also some talk about the Camanche area and taking drinking water over the hill to a landowner’s property. This decision could be affected by the presence of  the California Tiger Salamander, which has been discovered within a mile of the area.

The Environmental Protection Agency is interested in how the Salamander’s habitat will be affected. A final discussion occurred between Dunn and Abercrombie concerning the wastewater capacity at the Airport. Dunn, a representative of the Airport Committee and its ongoing renovations and improvements to the airport, seemed surprised when Abercrombie remarked that the AWA has no to little further wastewater capacity available for the airport to use. Discussions will continue at future meetings.

Wastewater continues to be the topic of discussion in the county. The City of Jackson is one of the entities currently discussing waste water at length, especially while waiting for the Regional Water Quality Control Board to release their permit which will specify how the City is to deal with their waste water in the future. Several alternatives have been identified if Jackson is required to pull their wastewater out of the creek. However, at this week’s meeting the costs associated with these identified solutions had the public and the commissioners concerned, to say the least.