Issues around water quality
and regulation continue to worsen here in Escondido. Please review
this important information regarding Escondido Mayor Sam Abed’s violation of
the stormwater permits Escondido 2014.
This is serious and is very troubling for the region. Please watch the video clip
at the end which includes the comments of Mayor Abed and then
Deputy Mayor Marie Waldron (now in the Assembly) about their views on the
stormwater permit and regulation. This a key reason we have lost
confidence in the city’s ability to achieve compliance with stormwater regulations. We thank the Regional Board for their diligent action
in investigating this issue
This
information has major ramifications on the water quality goals of Escondido
Neighbors United.
1.
We learned late last week that the Oak Creek developers have
changed their project to locate even more homes on to sensitive lands next to
Felicita Creek. We have raised repeated concerns about how
stormwater is planned for that project. More homes closer to the creek
means more hardening and more runoff potential. Now, those impacts will
be even worse. In our comments on the DEIR, we raised several
concerns about the future enforcement of standards. The environmental review
of that project stated repeatedly that impacts would not occur from the
project because there would be compliance with the stormwater regulations.
We are not so sure.
2. Now
we learn that Mayor Sam Abed, the leader of the city, has failed to comply
with stormwater quality laws and is currently subject to an on-going
investigation by the Water Quality Control Board regarding his paving
is property at 540 W. Grand Ave. This evidence of his lack of commitment
to our important water quality and environmental laws should be of concern to
everyone in our region. The Mayor’s disregard of regulations
has financial impacts as well– creating unfair competition and costs all of
us, the city, the state, additional money to bring him into
compliance.
3.
The source of the violations is clear in Mayor Abed’s comments about his
lack of respect and commitment to stormwater regulations when he offered his
opinions in January, 2011 in excerpt–: For me, I’ve seen this several
times. It’s another mandate…the EPA has a history of over regulation….there is no question of the over-regulation in this…” …the most cost effective way is mother nature, that will take
care of it without regulation without paperwork…” (emphasis added)
There are
many troubling aspects to these statements. Since Mayor Abed is in a position
of leadership, he has a responsibility to learn how the environment actually
works. The reason Mother Nature can’t ‘take care of it’ herself
is that we are constantly paving it over—hardening the surface with parking lots and development causing pollution and runoff to flow off the
sites which in turn erodes our creeks and degrades our water quality.
Because of this, we all pay the price of polluted water, stream
erosion, and flooding. If the EPA had been over-regulating, we
would have clean water now! The reason the stormwater permit continues to
get more stringent is that we are under-regulating and, in this case, under-complying.
This has
only heightened our significant concerns about the runoff issues in Escondido.
As it, now stands we cannot rely on the city to secure and
ensure compliance with the stormwater rules for new development. There
are many such developments proposed for Escondido, such as at Oak Creek, Amanda
Estates, Safari Highlands Ranch, and others that will need very strong
implementation of stormwater requirements or our environment and water quality
will suffer.
Mayor
Abed does not seem to understand the critical role the stormwater pollution
permit has in cleaning up our local waters. That he, himself, does
not comply is a significant problem and sends a troubling message about his
commitment to environmental protection rules.
We urge
the Mayor to take the time to get educated on water quality and environmental
issues– and comply with them– so
that we can all have more confidence in the actions of the city he leads as we
face more and more development threats to our water quality in the region.
As for
the regulators, we actually agree with Ms. Waldron who speaks at the end of the video clip, the Water Board is government
at its finest, we appreciate the Water Board’s firm hand and diligence in
upholding and defending our water quality regulations. We urge the Water
Board to continue to ensure compliance at this site. We will have
additional recommendations soon about future actions the Board should take to
ensure full-compliance in Escondido.
More
later.
