Los Olivos is a small, dusty, western town, while Washington, D.C., is a former swamp in north Virginia. Unlike Washington, Los Olivos neither needs nor wants a big government “solution” in search of a problem.
The Los Olivos Community Services District Board is ignoring its original plan, endorsed by voters and county regulators, for a small-scale, phased, sewage-treatment solution serving and located in downtown Los Olivos. Instead, the board has been pursuing a sewage plant that can process two and one-half times more effluent on a site three times as large as the original plan. In violation of state law and county planning requirements, the large, centralized plant would be located outside the district’s boundaries on scenic, protected, agricultural land at the gateway to Los Olivos, and that land would be seized from its longtime owner through eminent domain.
This is a big government “solution” to a problem that might not exist or might be the responsibility of someone other than district residents. Despite having spent more than four years and well over a million dollars, the board has no idea as to the existence, extent, or source of our groundwater problem.