Messages
Eric Neher and Greg Eager,
Toni Hardesty has invited me to get in touch with you with questions
about the Salmon wastewater system. I am concerned about the Salmon
wastewater process and concerned with the wellbeing of the people of
Salmon. That is why I
asked Lenore and why I got in touch with Toni.
We are looking for expertise.
Do you know of firms who can help us design a constructed
wetland?
We are asking for an analysis of a constructed wetland solution to
Salmon’s wastewater.
EPA and others show these wetland solutions are ½ to 1/8 the cost of
facultative lagoons.
EPA does not regulate water that goes to a constructed wetland and
then to agriculture.
Salmon’s excessive expense and instances of non-compliance will no
longer be a threat to the people of Salmon, if the effluent does not
go into the river.
I became concerned with this process at the public meeting that Toni
describes. Several
dozen citizens were at the meeting.
Two citizens said they do not want the system Keller
designed. Nobody said
they were neutral and nobody said they were in favor.
The treatment the two people received from the mayor, when
they did testify, was less than professional.
I speculate that is why other people did not testify at that
public meeting.
We do not accept the idea of Aristotle, James Madison, or Walter
Lippmann, that the common people cannot govern.
We think they can.
At the meeting I talked with Jim Mullen from Keller Associates,
after the council voted unanimously for the first reading of the
rate-increase ordinance.
Jim told me that a wetland was too expensive.
I asked if he had read the EPA documents on wetlands or
talked to anybody at EPA.
He said he had not.
He did not answer my messages, even though he invited me to
send him a message.
Skyler Allen did answer for Keller.
He too told me that a constructed wetland was too expensive.
Skyler was unable to answer
a technical question on table B-2 of the EPA Fact Sheet for Salmon.
I asked myself: How can a company advise on this project, if
they don’t understand the Fact Sheet?
Skyler did finally answer.
Those serving on the Waste Water
Citizen’s
Advisory Council
were:
Sandra Barrett, Dave Blauser,
Harlan Finnemore,
Steve Gould,
*Ken
Gutzman, *Leo Marshall, *Dan Maiyo,
William Teuscher,
*Harry
Shanafelt,*
Mickey Verbeck,
Bob Wiederrick, Luke Prange and *George
Ambrose.
When I saw that half of the committee was *City
Employees, I asked myself: How can a citizens committee give
advice to city employees of what citizens want, if city employees
are those committee members?
The Keller so-called 90% document[i]
about the Salmon wastewater facility does not show any constructed
wetland analysis.
Keller makes a few simple calculations about size of a wetland,
which are not consistent with EPA documents.
They did not talk with anybody about a constructed wetland
solution in Salmon or anywhere else.
Keller did talk with people in Salmon about the sewer system
and about the lagoons.
No scientist or engineer is on the city council or on the Citizens
Advisory Committee, who read the EPA documents about constructed
wetlands or talked with EPA about constructed wetlands. Nothing
on the public record shows that the
Citizens Advisory Committee
made any recommendations at all. The Citizens Committee did not
recommend upgrading the wastewater facility.
Keller Associates will not make money if Salmon develops a
constructed wetland. The
money will stay in Salmon to develop the constructed wetland.
That may be why Keller has not analyzed a constructed wetland
solution for Salmon.
Keller’s plan is to fix the wastewater facility, for $4 million
dollars.
In the Keller document they say a $33 to $36 increase to the $14
current wastewater tax and a yearly increase in that tax should be
passed. How does that
make sense for a town where the median income is
$26,823? Councilman Jim
Baker told me that EPA will not offer a loan unless the wastewater
tax is $42. That is
just hear-say, but does not make sense either.
Just downstream of the effluent outlet from the facultative lagoons,
farmers take water from the Salmon River for irrigation.
Salmon puts water with nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) into
the river. Farmers pump
clear water from the river for agriculture and then fertilize with N
and P. If farmers used
the water from a constructed wetland, the N and P would already be
in the water. The
wetland would make those substances soluble and be available for
irrigation, before the wetland plants could take-up those
substances.
At the January 6 Salmon City Council meeting, I discussed the NPDES
violations, a constructed wetland solution, and gave the council a
written copy of this analysis.
Councilman Ken Gutzman told me they were not going to do
anything for two years, apparently because he thinks the current EPA
permit is good enough for now.
Mayor John Miller told me that the land for a wetland would
cost too much.
Councilman Leo Marshall asked what credential I had for criticizing
their plan. I said PhD
biochemistry.
If an expert on constructed wetlands could communicate with the
council, then maybe the council will take constructed wetlands
seriously. Maybe we can
find a deal between a land owner and the city that is good for the
land owner, good for the city, good for the river, good for the
fish, good for the land, and good for the common people of Salmon.