THE
DEBATE INTENSIFIES
Alexandra
Stillman had wondered from the outset why the regional sewer
treatment plant had to be so big, and she and her colleagues on the
council had wanted to look at alternatives. Council members had
other concerns, however. "There were so many other things happening
at the time," Stillman recalled in August 1989. "Criminal justice
planning, a new bus system. So we had to divvy up the
responsibilities among the council."
Stillman drew
the sewage treatment responsibility. The Humboldt Bay Water
Authority (HBWA), formed in January 1975, was overseeing plans for
the regional system. But by the fall of 1976 inflation had driven
estimates of construction costs to $52 million. In addition,
knowledgeable citizens in Arcata were projecting that the system's
operating costs would be prohibitive, in part because of the energy
it would consume, in part because of its potential for negative
environmental impact. They feared, among other hazards, accidental
rupture of the underwater collector lines.
These
projections put new pressure on the City Council to name a Marsh
Task Force charged with revising its earlier plan for an
independent treatment system. The task force marshaled the evidence
in favor of the Arcata plan, including a ruling by a regional board
in the San Francisco area that marsh treatment could meet
water-enhancement requirements and a state policy, adopted in 1977,
encouraging projects employing "used" water to create natural
habitats.
But the
council was subject to another, countervailing pressure. David
Joseph, Executive Director of the North Coast Regional Water
Quality Control Board, and his staff, hoping to stop Arcata's
dawdling about the regional system, had imposed a construction
moratorium on Eureka and Arcata until their sewage treatment
capacity was increased. Eureka, much more growth-conscious than
Arcata, would not feel the pinch as soon as its smaller neighbor to
the north—it still had some limited sewage treatment capacity
available. Arcata, on the other hand, had none, and although
promoting growth was not uppermost in Arcatans' minds, a prolonged
period during which new building was prohibited would put political
pressure on the council to get on with the regional plan.
ESCALATION
Even so,
Assistant City Engineer Stephen Leiker, who is from San Jose, and a
number of his friends and teachers from Humboldt State saw the
dispute over the "giant water treatment scheme" as a growth issue
and a home rule issue as well as a technological issue. "We learned
[in San Jose]