Word: arcata
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Arcatans began to worry about environmental overkill. The idea of sewer pipes running amuck through bucolic farm and forest lands frightened them. And the system's budget, a mix of federal grants and local assessments, ballooned to $56 million. Frank Klopp, Arcata's gravel-voiced public-works director, concluded that maintenance costs might force him to double the city's sewage rates. Klopp, known as "Klippity" in a city hall addicted to folksy nicknames, took himself to the mayor's office. "We really ought to get out," he growled. Gradually, others agreed. The bay's tugboat captains were worried that...
...delay gave everybody time to think. Arcata still needed an alternative disposal system that would "enhance" Humbolt Bay. Its sludge-skimming plant piped the city's wastewater into an oxidation pond (where most microbes are rendered harmless by sunlight), but the runoff no longer met legal standards. Locals knew vaguely that wastewater had some environmental pluses. Humboldt Bay oysters fed on its nutrients, and Professor Allen, a likable tinkerer whom Klippity Klopp calls Crazy George, raised salmon fingerlings in a mix of sea and wastewater. Other ideas emerged. HSU biologist Stan Harris was for a bird sanctuary. Gearheart came...
Good science as far as it went, but Arcata's thinkers hadn't reckoned with the State of California's political food chain. The city's neighbors still wanted the state system to solve their sewage problems. State bureaucrats believed the city's opposition to the proposed plant was naive and anti- environmentalist. In May of 1977, Arcata approached a regional meeting of the state's Water Quality Control Board and sat for seven hours until allowed to speak during an "open comments" period...
...board demanded a feasibility study of Arcata's proposal in three weeks. "That was war," recalls Gearheart. Such studies normally cost thousands of dollars and take months to produce. But three weeks later, after Gearheart wrote and volunteers made copies all night long at city hall, a Greyhound bus $ took the study away at dawn. The board promptly rejected it. Allen, Gearheart and Councilman Hauser spent nearly two years flying to regional meetings to counter further state objections while they appealed. Finally, the city, through some adroit politicking, won permission from state officials for a pilot project...
...Arcata followed up immediately by coaxing California's Coastal Conservancy into constructing three full-size freshwater marsh ponds, so that a full-size wetlands would be ready by 1981, when the pilot project proved them right. And it worked. The combined marsh and disposal plant finally opened in 1985, costing $3 million less than Arcata's share of the megasystem's original budget. "We declared victory and withdrew from the war," recalls Hauser. Since wars require monuments, the sanctuary has ponds named Hauser, Allen and Gearheart. A saltwater slough where pelicans and cormorants gather is called Klopp Lake. Mount Trashmore...