LOTT: Water Revolution Will Now Be Televised

Above: LOTT Clean Water Alliance board meetings will be televised starting next month, and the LOTT board members and Karla Fowler, LOTT Community and Environmental Policy Director, are ready for their big screen debut. LOTT and Thurston Community Television (TCTV) held a practice run with camera angles and technical fine tuning at Wednesday night’s LOTT Clean Water Alliance meeting.

Fowler, who joined the LOTT staff in 1996, is scheduled to retire from her position in July 2016. The community relations department is currently being reorganized as selection processes are underway for a public communications manager and an environmental project manager. New websites for LOTT and the WET Center will also be unveiled in 2016.

By Janine Gates

www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com

Lights! Camera! Action! At long last, the local water revolution will be televised starting next month when LOTT Clean Water Alliance board meetings and activities will be televised.  

Not only will there be plenty of technical bathroom talk about biosolids, reclaimed water, and total maximum daily loads, community members will also learn how the LOTT board of directors spends millions of dollars per year to maintain the region’s massive wastewater system.

Installation of the necessary equipment began in October, and four cameras will provide video and audio recording capabilities in the LOTT board room, training room, and classroom to serve a broad range of public events. 

The video equipment installation cost $168,375. The two year contract not to exceed $60,000 allows for Thurston Community Television (TCTV) coverage of LOTT board meetings and other events held by LOTT.

Meetings will not be televised live, but are expected be available the next day through the LOTT website. Work sessions are not currently scheduled to be televised, but TCTV executive director Deb Vinsel said the recording of work sessions would easily fit into the budget contract already created between LOTT and TCTV.

Meetings will also be broadcast on TCTV on a schedule that has not yet been determined on local Comcast channels 3 and 26.

Meetings and events other than LOTT’s could also be documented, and those entities would contract separately with TCTV for services, said Vinsel.

Vinsel said the LOTT meetings will be the first governmental entity broadcast in high definition in the county. The City of Olympia council meetings are expected to experience the next technical upgrade, scheduled for about June, 2016.

The work session and board meeting on Wednesday was taped as a practice run while LOTT board members discussed protocols as TCTV staff worked out the bugs regarding lighting, camera angles and microphone positions. 

Vinsel asked the LOTT board to ask its legal department for clarification and definition of “official record,” as Vinsel said the public sometimes contacts TCTV for meeting videos. 

Vinsel explained that TCTV simply documents meetings and is not a news agency. There is no ‘editorializing’ with the cameras, meaning they do not change camera angles to catch the reactions of individual speakers, for example, nor do they edit video.

The next LOTT Clean Water Alliance Board meeting, which will be video recorded and televised, is January 13, 2016.

LOTT Has A Lot of Business To Cover

The LOTT Clean Water Alliance operates a complex system of facilities worth an estimated $750 million and televised meetings will help increase the transparency and public oversight of staff activities and LOTT board decisions. 

The LOTT Board of Directors consists of four elected officials, one from each of the partner jurisdictions – cities of Lacey, Olympia, and Tumwater, and Thurston County. These positions are currently held by Cynthia Pratt, City of Lacey, Steve Langer, City of Olympia, Tom Oliva, City of Tumwater, and Sandra Romero, Thurston County.

The Wednesday night meeting was Langer’s last meeting, as he is leaving the Olympia City Council at the end of his term this month. City of Olympia councilmember Julie Hankins, his designated alternate, may take his place, and was present in the audience Wednesday night.

LOTT staff members are organized under four division directors who report to the current executive director, Mike Strub.

Wastewater treatment is an expensive business and infrastructure costs are huge. With 76 full-time positions, LOTT treats an average of 13 million gallons of wastewater each day.

LOTT’s assets include the Budd Inlet Treatment Plant, Budd Inlet Reclaimed Water Plant, Martin Way Reclaimed Water Plant, Hawks Prairie Reclaimed Water Ponds and Recharge Basins, and three major pump stations. 

LOTT serves over 52,000 acres within the Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater urban growth area. LOTT also owns and maintains 28.3 miles of sewer interceptor pipelines, and 10.7 miles of reclaimed water pipelines. The three cities own and maintain 53 miles of sewer collection system pipelines, which convey wastewater to LOTT's interceptors.

LOTT Budget

Very few members of the public attend LOTT meetings, even when it comes to the review of a multi-million dollar budget. Currently, the public can physically attend a meeting, listen to audiotapes of meetings on the website, and read meeting minutes to keep up with regional wastewater system projects.

In October, the board conducted a public hearing on the proposed 2016 Operating Budget, 2016 Capital Budget, and 2016-2050 Capital Improvements Plan. Board President, Olympia city councilmember Steve Langer, opened the public hearing at 6:41 p.m. and closed the public hearing at 6:42 p.m. because there was no public testimony.

And so, the LOTT Clean Water Alliance board of directors approved the 2016 combined Operating and Capital Budget in the amount of $39,941,715, an increase of about four percent over the current 2015 budget. 

The Operating Budget contains all the costs necessary to operate LOTT’s wastewater and reclaimed water facilities and administrative functions. The 2016 budget includes $11.8 million for operations and $8.9 million for debt payments.

The 2016 Capital Budget was approved in the amount of $19,190,920. The Capital Budget includes costs necessary to construct new facilities and upgrade, replace, and rehabilitate existing facilities.

 

The board also approved the 2016 - 2050 Capital Improvements Plan which identifies $89 million in projects anticipated through 2021. The 2016 Capital Budget is about 22 percent of that total, at $19.2 million.

 

In case of emergencies, LOTT maintains approximately $10.8 million in reserves in the bank. 

Reclaimed Water

LOTT has many ongoing projects of concern to the public, including a large-scale upgrade project for the Budd Inlet Treatment Plant and several projects related to reclaimed water.

A five year Reclaimed Water Infiltration Study, now in its third year, is examining the potential risks of infiltrating reclaimed water into groundwater. Reclaimed water contains residual chemicals from medicines, personal care products, household cleaners, fertilizers, and more.

The study’s activities for 2016 include extensive field data collection and analysis. LOTT has hired a firm to do water quality sampling at the Budd Inlet and Martin Way Reclaimed Water Plants, groundwater sampling in the Hawks Prairie and Henderson Boulevard areas, a tracer study involving sampling work in and near the Hawks Prairie infiltration site, surface water sampling in select water bodies, and analysis of potential risks to public and environmental health. 

A citizen advisory group to the study was next going to meet in early December, but that was postponed.

“We do not have a date yet for the next meeting. We will be sending out a project update soon to the study list serve, but may not call the advisory group together for a meeting until early spring, when we have more data to share,” said Lisa Dennis-Perez, LOTT public communications manager, earlier this week.

Reclaimed water has been in use throughout the region for 10 years and is currently being used by the State of Washington at Heritage Park and Marathon Park, the Port of Olympia, City of Olympia at Percival Landing Park, Hands On Children’s Museum, East Bay Public Plaza, and the City of Tumwater at the Tumwater Municipal Golf Course.

Potential new uses over the next five years include irrigation of the Capitol Campus, which could utilize up to 250,000 gallons of reclaimed water a day.

In Lacey, the Woodland Creek infiltration facility is now in operation and LOTT is now developing a Deschutes Valley reclaimed water system master plan on 45 acres on the former brewery property in Tumwater. This project is anticipated to begin in 2029 at a cost of about $50,600,000.

The Washington State Department of Ecology, in conjunction with the Department of Health, has been working on the development of a Reclaimed Water Rule since 2006 and LOTT has been a participant from the beginning.

Since both of LOTT’s reclaimed water permits are due for renewal in 2016, LOTT is likely to be among the first utilities affected by the new rule, which is expected to be adopted by the end of the year.

Growth and the Bottom Line: Your Utility Bill

If you are a homeowner or renter in Lacey, Olympia, or Tumwater, the wastewater service charge on your utility bill is broken down into the city’s wastewater fee and LOTT treatment. This charge funds the operating budget and the portions of the Capital Improvements Plan (CIP) that involve system repairs and needed upgrades.

The 2016 budget includes an increase of $1.08 in LOTT's monthly service rate from $36.06 a month in 2015 to $37.14 per month in 2016. This is a three percent increase to cover inflation.

The fee for connecting new customers to the sewer system has also increased from the current rate of $5,136.38 to $5,354.57, to cover inflation and support large-scale capital projects.

This fee, called a capacity development charge is paid when users hook up to the sewer system, and it is the primary funding source for projects that increase system capacity for new growth.

LOTT Looks Forward

Special meetings are occasionally held to share and discuss significant program and capital facility changes and challenges that are likely to face LOTT and its four partner jurisdictions.

After Wednesday's board meeting, Kelsey Browne, LOTT community relations program assistant, said she hopes the public is able to take advantage of learning more about LOTT, and lamented that the Septic Summit 2 meeting held in April was not televised.  

According to the forum minutes, seventeen elected officials were present. The first Septic Summit was held in 2011.

“We had three city councils, county commissioners, agency public information officers, and citizens here for a forum to discuss urban density septic systems. It was a full house. It just illustrated to us how we were held back by not having it televised,” said Browne.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on the evening of December 13. Significant corrections were made to budget numbers and LOTT assets on December 14 after an article review by LOTT staff. Little Hollywood apparently used 2015 budget figures instead of 2016 numbers and regrets the errors.  

For more information about LOTT, or to get on their Reclaimed Water Infiltration Study email list, go to the LOTT Clean Water Alliance website at www.lottcleanwater.org. LOTT is located at 500 Adams Street NE, Olympia.

For more information about LOTT, the Reclaimed Water Infiltration Study (formerly called the Groundwater Recharge Scientific Study), compounds of emerging concern, go to Little Hollywood, www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com, and type key words into the search engine button.

Above: LOTT board meetings and the water revolution of South Puget Sound will be televised starting in 2016, thanks to the technological skills of staff at Thurston Community Television (TCTV).

Journalist Chris Hedges Comes to Olympia

By Janine Unsoeld

www.janineslittlehollywood.blogspot.com

Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and columnist for Truthdig, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans, with fifteen years at The New York Times.

Hedges will be speaking on Monday, March 9, 2015, 7:00 p.m., at South Puget Sound Community College’s Minnaert Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are $10 for community members and free with SPSCC student identification. Tickets are available online at OlyTix.org or by calling (360)753-8586 or at the Washington Center or the Minnaert Center box offices. The event is sponsored by B.R.I.C.K.

Hedges, who said he has never been to Olympia before, took the time to respond this morning to a few questions posed by Little Hollywood.

Hedges is the author of numerous bestselling books, including Empire of Illusion, Death of the Liberal Class, War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, and Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt. His latest book, Wages of Rebellion, will be released in May.

According to Hedges’ press release:

Revolutions come in waves and cycles. We are again riding the crest of a revolutionary epic, much like 1848 or 1917, from the Arab Spring to movements against austerity in Greece to the Occupy movement. In Wages of Rebellion, Chris Hedges—who has chronicled the malaise and sickness of a society in terminal moral decline in his books Empire of Illusion and Death of the Liberal Class—investigates what social and psychological factors cause revolution, rebellion, and resistance. Drawing on an ambitious overview of prominent philosophers, historians, and literary figures he shows not only the harbingers of a coming crisis but also the nascent seeds of rebellion. Hedges’ message is clear: popular uprisings in the United States and around the world are inevitable in the face of environmental destruction and wealth polarization.

Focusing on the stories of rebels from around the world and throughout history, Hedges investigates what it takes to be a rebel in modern times. Utilizing the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, Hedges describes the motivation that guides the actions of rebels as “sublime madness” — the state of passion that causes the rebel to engage in an unavailing fight against overwhelmingly powerful and oppressive forces. For Hedges, resistance is carried out not for its success, but as a moral imperative that affirms life. Those who rise up against the odds will be those endowed with this “sublime madness.”

Interview with Little Hollywood:

Little Hollywood: You have a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard University. In secular media, do you notice a bias against people who share their thankfulness or faith in God? How does your religious training influence your writing?

Hedges: I worked at The New York Times for 15 years where they looked any anyone who expressed any appreciation for religious thought as slightly unhinged.  I would say all my writing is rooted in my theological studies and my reverence for the sacred.  That said, I am no friend of institutional religion.  The theologian Paul Tillich got it right.  All institutions, including the church, are inherently demonic.

Little Hollywood: Regarding terrorism, ISIS is a gang and seems to be effective in attracting disaffected young people – it gives them a purpose, an identity and a feeling of belonging. Is there a way to attract people toward good motives and purposes? 

Hedges: We created ISIS.  We did it by dropping missiles, artillery and carrying out air strikes for 13 years in the Middle East.  We did it with our militarized drones.  We have decapitated far more people, including children, than ISIS.  During the Vietnam War we carried out saturation bombing of Cambodia and got Pol Pot.  This is the modern equivalent.  When you brutalize people they become brutal.  And we would be no different.  ISIS burns a pilot in a cage because our air strikes burn whole families in their homes.  What ISIS did is cruder, but it is morally no different.  Employing more violence to solve a problem caused by indiscriminate violence is idiotic.  But it makes the merchants of war rich.

Little Hollywood: You are currently teaching prisoners at the maximum security prison in New Jersey and just posted a story about Siddique Hasan, a man on death row in Ohio. What are you teaching the prisoners, how often, and what are you learning?

Hedges: I teach college credit level courses to prisoners at the maximum security prison in Rahway, New Jersey.  I teach something different every semester.  This spring I am teaching a course on conquest so we are reading The Open Veins of Latin America, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Black Jacobins and Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made.  Last fall I taught W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Black Boy and Invisible Man.  The year before I helped prisoners write a play about prison called “Caged” (see my column "The Play's the Thing) that will be performed by a theater in New York in January.  Mass incarceration is the most important civil rights issues of our time.

Little Hollywood: You’ve won awards for your online journalism. In a question about online vs. print journalism, how do citizen online journalists get their stories noticed by a wider audience than the already converted? Do you read anything in print?

Hedges: I write a weekly column as if it was for a print publication.  I do not like social media -- I do not have a television, a web page, a Facebook page or tweet -- because I see it as a form of self-promotion and intellectually shallow. I remain rooted in a print-based culture.  There are 5,000 books in my house and I read for a few hours every night.  I wrote a book about the importance of remaining rooted in the world of ideas called Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. 

Little Hollywood: You left The New York Times after being issued a formal reprimand for denouncing the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq in a graduation speech. In an interview, you said The New York Times acted as nothing less than a stenographer for the Bush White House pumping out lies used to justify the war. What stories is The New York Times currently getting wrong? 

Hedges: The New York Times is an elitist publication.  Its unwritten credo is: do not significantly alienate those on whom we depend for money and access.  That said, it can still do great journalism.  But it is an establishment organ.  Its biggest sin right now is that it continues to treat centers of power, both political and financial, with respect and deference when they have become criminal.  This includes Wall Street, the courts that defend wholesale surveillance and a system where money replaces the vote and our political leaders who are corporate puppets.  The longer they continue to play this game the more credibility they lose.

Little Hollywood: You’ve been fortunate to travel to get first-hand source information and interviews, especially since you know three languages in addition to English: Arabic, French, and Spanish. In a 2007 interview, you said that you don’t own a television. Is this still true, and for how long have you not had a television? How has this influenced your children’s development and understanding of the world? 

Hedges: I have never had a television.  I did not grow up with one.  Neither have my children.  This is why they are readers.  We spend a lot of time outdoors.  We unplug from the electronic hallucinations of modern culture.  And we are much healthier for it.  As a writer I do not want to speak in the language the corporate state gives to us.  This is why reading is so important.  You cannot challenge systems of power unless you understand those systems -- including the nature of capitalism -- and this requires you pick up, for example, Marx's Capital Volume I and read all 940 pages.  There is no short cut to knowledge.

Little Hollywood: Many environmentalists seem to arrive upon an issue too late, or chase the latest issue du jour. A lot of energy is wasted participating in structured public hearings that are designed to involve the public too little and too late. How can activists work smarter on issues that really matter, and really make a difference?

Hedges: By realizing that the system is gamed.  The corporate forces that are destroying the environment are writing the regulations.  This is why after the three decades-long struggle by environmental groups things are worse.  We can't halt the destruction of the eco-system by asking those who are destroying it to regulate themselves.  This is ridiculous.  We have to create acts of mass civil disobedience to make this destruction difficult for them.  Not one in the Democratic or Republican parties at this point is going to help us.    

Little Hollywood: I’ve told you a little bit about the types of issues local environmental activists are interested here in Olympia: land use, climate change, growth, food sustainability, Puget Sound water quality, the Port of Olympia’s acceptance of ceramic proppants from Asia used in the fracking industry and the export of raw logs to Asia, proposed oil train-to-marine transfer terminals in Washington State, and more.  In general and environmentally, what types of stories do you feel are most underreported that, if covered, will help progressive citizens get to the root of making a difference? What would that look like?

Hedges: No one writes about the poor, now about half the country.  They have become invisible.  What is being done to the poor, especially the poor in our sacrifice zones, such as the coal fields of West Virginia, is key to understanding what corporate forces are now doing to us.  Joe Sacco and I wrote a book out of the poorest pockets of the United States called Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, that tried to show what unfettered capitalism looks like.  When there are no impediments to capitalism it becomes, as Marx wrote, a revolutionary force.  People and the nature world become commodities to exploit until exhaustion or collapse.  We are all being sacrificed now and we better wake up and overthrow the corporate state or we will be complicit in the extinction of the human species.

Little Hollywood: You wrote about a hike you took in 2010 on the Appalachian Trail. It sounds like you appreciate nature and turn to it where you live to unwind and help you process the atrocities you have seen in so many war-torn areas of the world. How do you keep from getting overwhelmed with all the world’s issues and how do you choose what to write about?

Hedges: I unplug from the world, go into the woods for days on end with my backpack, look at the stars at night and connect with the vastness of the universe.  This gives me peace.

Little Hollywood: I read in your column, “Saving the Planet One Meal at a Time,” that you became a vegan three months ago.  You wrote: “My attitude toward becoming a vegan was similar to Augustine’s attitude toward becoming celibate—“God grant me abstinence, but not yet.” But with animal agriculture as the leading cause of species extinction, water pollution, ocean dead zones and habitat destruction, and with the death spiral of the ecosystem ever more pronounced, becoming vegan is the most important and direct change we can immediately make to save the planet and its species. It is one that my wife—who was the engine behind our family’s shift—and I have made.” How is it going?

Hedges: I remain a committed vegan.  No one who cares about saving the planet, and who believes life is sacred, can eat animal products.

Little Hollywood would like to thank Chris Hedges for taking the time to respond to my questions.

To learn more about future Building Revolution by Increasing Community (B.R.I.C.K.) events, go to: www.spsccbrick.org or on Facebook at  https://www.facebook.com/brick.spscc

If you require disability accommodations for this event, please contact the Office of Student Life at studentlife@spscc.ctc.edu or call (360) 596-5306.