Op Ed: No Super-Sized Sewer in Los Olivos

Please check out this excellent OpEd recently written by longtime Los Olivos resident Michelle de Werd.

Letters to the Editor for the Week Ending Sept. 16, 2022

There is one surefire way to wipe out what remains of the quaint town of Los Olivos that we know and love: build a super sewer site and an expandable open-air treatment plant on a large parcel beyond our township’s boundaries.

The Los Olivos Community Services District, formed in 2018, was tasked with devising a local solution to our community’s long-standing groundwater quality problem.

Unfortunately, the district is running out of time. If the board cannot devise a reasonable and cost-effective solution that the town will approve by April, Santa Barbara County and the State of California will be free to take over.

Unbeknown to many, on top of permanently being on the hook for the cost of building, operating, maintaining and repairing sewer lines and a sewage treatment plant, Los Olivos property owners will bear the costs of connecting their individual parcels to the sewer system.

We must not be naïve. With access to sewer service, the agricultural lands surrounding our small townships can easily be rezoned to provide for more growth of the type that engulfed Orange County and the San Fernando Valley.

With no local representation or government, our community has no protection from changes to zoning laws. No one on the county Board of Supervisors lives in Los Olivos, and it only takes three votes to rezone agricultural land. Also, we know that developers donate to political campaigns and influence our elected officials.

My suggestions to the Los Olivos Community Services District board:

» Go small. Return to the original plan: a compact system, similar to the Mattei’s Tavern’s project, in and for the commercial core of Los Olivos.

» Think small. Seek grant funding available to fund planning and building a system for small communities like ours.

» Stay small. Do not give commercial uses and high-density housing development access to a system that will push urban sprawl into our agricultural lands across Highway 154 to the north and toward Ballard to the south.

» Don’t wait. The clock is ticking.

Four of the five district board seats are up for election in November. Six candidates are running.

A candidates forum is scheduled for 6 p.m. Oct. 5 at the Los Olivos Elementary School gym at 2540 Alamo Pintado Ave. The forum is jointly hosted by the Los Olivos Rotary Club, Preservation of Los Olivos (POLO) and Women’s Environmental Watch (WeWatch).

Michelle de Werd
Los Olivos