My Lawsuit Against Pure Water Project

Dear Editor,

I am the person who has taken legal action against Soquel Creek Water District regarding the shameful excuse of an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) that the District paid a consultant hundreds of thousands of dollars to create as a perfunctory gesture regarding the PureWater Soquel Project. This expensive Project would treat and inject $1.3 million gallons of sewage water into the aquifer daily, requiring massive amounts of electricity, potentially contaminate many local streams if the system malfunctions or pipes leak, and possibly cause irreversible pollution of local groundwater drinking supplies with pharmaceuticals and other contaminants for which there are no state drinking water limits yet established.

The negative impacts of the Project are significant enough that the District had to approve a Statement of Overriding Consideration, claiming that the benefits of the Project outweigh the significant negative environmental damages it will cause. It would increase concentrations of contaminants released at the City’s wastewater treatment plant outfall pipe, which is ruptured and allows effluent release much closer to shore than should be happening. The District has no final analysis proving that this Project will not adversely affect the water quality of the local streams and aquifer, even though such analysis is required by the State.

I took the legal action as the only way available to the public to call into question the actions of the Soquel Creek Water District Board and staff, and what they have been willing to do to approve the PureWater Soquel Project on a fast-track construction scheme and thereby get money from the State Water Resources Control Board. Clearly, their focus has been on getting the money for the Project they desire, at the great expense of placing an unmerciful financial burden on their ratepayers in order to present a favorable picture to the State grantors. The Board approved this calculated action on November 6, 2018, before they even approved the Project and certified the faux-EIR on December 18, 2018. Tier 2 rates, at nearly $30/unit, were designed solely to pay for the PureWater Soquel Project matching funds required to get government funding. The Board approved steep 9% annual rate increases that will continue for the next five years, causing tremendous punitive financial gouging to families, and cause those on fixed incomes great hardship.

Because I care deeply about my Community, I chose to take the legal action for the Public Benefit against the District, to demand they re-do the EIR with thorough and meaningful analysis. I have asked that the District present meaningful information for the public regarding true energy costs, environmental damages, impacts of removing a significant barrier to future unfettered urban growth, and perhaps most importantly, if the Project is even necessary. Even the Santa Cruz County Water Resources Director questioned the accuracy of the groundwater basin sustainable levels claimed to be needed in the EIR.

Many others and I hold that this Project is not necessary. Many water experts have clearly stated that Santa Cruz County has no real water supply problem, but rather a true water storage problem. The issue can be readily and relatively inexpensively addressed with regional cooperative water management, and has begun in a limited way with existing water supply pipeline inter-ties and agreements between Santa Cruz City and Soquel Creek Water District. However, this approach was not thoroughly analyzed in the EIR. Soquel Creek Water District lacks the political will to pursue this cooperative scenario, and instead has plunged forward in the misguided PureWater Soquel Project effort that would forever burden ratepayers and the environment.

I have asked the District for no money, only that a meaningful EIR be conducted and include thorough public process, which has completely left out the disadvantaged Live Oak community where the District wants to construct a large treatment plant that would house many hazardous chemicals. The District instead has sought to spend nearly a half million dollars to hire a legal team from Riverside, Ca. to fight my challenge. These attorneys have flown from southern California each time to represent the District, but sometimes say nothing at all in the court room, and allow local attorney Mr. Bosso to speak.

I have had to work very hard to get an impartial judge to hear my case. I have done all my own legal work. Judge Gallagher, who later disqualified himself only when I discovered and raised the issue that he had been a trial attorney for Soquel Creek Water District for 23 years, put the case schedule on a very quick timeline. His order for a quick timeline gave me insufficient time to prepare complete documents, or to prepare for the final hearing held on November 8 before Judge Timothy Schmal, a misdemeanor court judge who was not seemingly familiar with environmental law.

Judge Schmal denied my request to move the case to Sacramento County where there are four such environmental judges that could review my case with seasoned knowledge of the laws.

Judge Schmal denied my request to be allowed to amend my complaint to correct mistakes, include critical information that would support my arguments, and add a ninth cause of action that pointed out the District violated the law by failing to notify any schools within a quarter mile of the Project where there would be hazardous chemicals used or unhealthy levels of diesel fumes from large equipment during construction.

Judge Schmal denied my request to extend time on the Hearing date so that I could get critical information from the State Dept. Water Resources that has been delayed three times regarding the criteria used to claim the MidCounty Groundwater Basin is in “critical overdraft”, when the scientific data being collected show it is not.

Judge Schmal ultimately denied my complaint altogether in a poorly-reasoned and vague document that he released one day before the Soquel Creek Water District entourage went to Sacramento to accept their $50 million State grant award and $36 million low-cost 20-year loan for the Project. Included in this entourage was the lobbyist for which the District customers have paid over $100,000.

I will appeal Judge Schmal’s Order that denied me the ability to take my case to the well-seasoned environmental judges in Sacramento County Superior Court. I will appeal Judge Schmal’s judgment denying my complaint and the ability to amend it, merely asking that Soquel Creek Water District do a better job on the environmental analysis of the Project and reasonably examine the regional management scenario alternatives. These could include consolidation with the City of Santa Cruz, which some ratepayers have requested.

I do not intend to give up. This is too important to the health and well being of those in my Community who have been ignored and dismissed by the Soquel Creek Water District Board and staff, and for the environment that has no voice at all.

Online Protest Petition https://www.change.org/p/soquel-creek-water-district-board-of-directors-soquel-creek-water-district-rate-increases-unfair-and-hurt-families.

— Becky Steinbruner, Petitioner, in Pro Per for the Public Benefit

Case #19CV00181