Active Shooter, Drought, Earthquake, Hazmat, Pandemic, Wildland Fire, Winter Storm — what do all of these events have in common? Answer: Anderson Valley is ready for them. On paper. In theory.
Last Wednesday night at the Community Services District Board meeting Fire Chief Andres Avila and one of Anderson Valley's most experienced emergency responders, David Severn, also a veteran of untold personal disasters, delivered an abbreviated overview of Anderson Valley's site-specific plans for catastrophes.
The primary authors of the plan were Avila, Severn, and retired Fire Chief Colin Wilson. The plan is more of a "guide," emphasized Avila. It provides checklists and resources for emergency responders and volunteers to call on in the event of, well, The Big Event. The information is organized by category in a detailed computer database; much of it is also contained in thick three-ring binders prepositioned at both ends of the valley as well as in Boonville. There is also what Chief Avila described as an "Oh Crap Packet," which provides the same information in hard copy in the event of an electrical or computer failure.
The information is organized in categories like food, shelter, communication, heavy equipment, airplanes, personnel, etc.
Director Neil Diamond was curious about the fire department's role in the Event of an "active shooter,” joking, "Do you douse him with a fire hose?" Chief Avila agreed that the fire department's role in the case of an active shooter has more to do with traffic control and back up support to law enforcement than with direct confrontation with an armed nutball.
The board was impressed with the comprehensiveness and organization of the disaster plan. Severn mentioned that other local agencies have asked for copies so that they can model their disaster plans along the same lines.
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Director Hanelt told the board that several local businesses had approached her complaining about the numbers of motorists speeding through downtown Boonville. After some discussion about planning grants, traffic calming, roadside radar-speed signs, crosswalk flags, and so forth — most of which would take years if they happned at all — the board reluctantly agreed to send a letter to the local Highway Patrol office in Ukiah asking for additional law enforcement presence downtown during peak traffic periods in the Valley. (“Reluctantly,” because some board members were concerned that a few locals might complain about the board requesting more law enforcement in the Valley. Way back, a resident highway patrolman, a native of the Anderson Valley, was badly beaten by a late night mob of truck drivers angry at him for writing what the mob claimed was too many arbitrary speeding tickets. But it is clear that on Fridays when the tourists head up here from the south, and Sundays when they head back to the south, an awful lot of traffic moves through here as if it's all part of Highway 101.)
Chief Avila told the board that a Request for Proposals for a pilot program version of an exclusive [ambulance] operating area (EOA) for inland Mendocino County has been released, promulgated one might say if one were a fancypants correspondent. The local volunteer ambulance service is working on its response with the two likely bidders, Ukiah Valley Ambulance and VeriHealth. Avila expects that no matter how the ambulance arrangements end up, Anderson Valley Ambulance Service will still be the local ambulance provider, probably as a subcontractor or partner with the winning “exclusive” inland ambulance service bidder. But exactly how such an arrangement will work and be financed remains unclear.
“The Water Project,” as the Boonville Sewer & Water System proposal is now dubbed, is still moving along. CSD Board Chair Hanelt and Board member Kathleen McKenna met recently with the County's chief planner Andrew Gustafson who apparently likes the idea so much he volunteered to come to a second meeting in Boonville to closely examine a parcel map for downtown Boonville to see which specific areas might be candidates for a publicly operated water and/or sewer system.
In partial response to complaints about a water or sewer system becoming the first step toward a large expansion of downtown Boonville, Ms. Hanelt said that Gustafson had told her that housing expansion in downtown Boonville was intrinsically limited by the very small size of Boonville’s residential parcels, and that any proposed system could not be built to handle more than 10% of existing or engineered hook-ups. There was therefore little likelihood that it would turn Boonville into a downscale version of Healdsburg or the like.
Gustafson also told Hanelt that constructing a public water or sewer system would probably be expensive — but less expensive than privately replaced individual septic systems or new wells.
Ms. Hanelt has preliminarily scheduled Thursday, August 27 as a target date for the next presentation with Mr. Gustafson and other technical advisers. If summer vacations or other conflicts arise, the alternate date would probably be late October.
David Severn made a brief presentation on California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and encouraged the Board to consider applying for "Local Agency" status that would allow the Valley and the District to have more say and control over groundwater (i.e., well water) usage. He noted that Anderson Valley was a "low priority basin" compared to, say, Ukiah Valley, but felt the increasing local vineyard presence will make groundwater usage and management a high priority for the Valley. He presented each Board member with a short summary informational sheet, as follows.
SB 1168, SB 1319, and AB 1739: Groundwater Management — Until this last drought year, California had some of the least-stringent groundwater regulations in the country. A trio of bills passed in the last legislative session starts to change that. SB 1168 proclaims the state's interest in regulating groundwater sustainably, creating local groundwater sustainability agencies and specifying that existing agencies now tracking groundwater reservoirs consider the effects of their use on surface water such as streams and lakes. SB 1319 allows the state to classify individual groundwater basins according to the degree of their depletion, and to single out "probationary" basins that are severely overdrafted. AB 1739 allows the above-mentioned groundwater sustainability agencies to assess fees of water users, as well as fines on those who continue to overdraft groundwater in probationary basins.
For the first time in California history, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) empowers local agencies to adopt groundwater management plans that are tailored to the resources and needs of their communities. Good groundwater management will provide a buffer against drought and climate change, and contribute to reliable water supplies regardless of weather patterns. California depends on groundwater for a major portion of its annual water supply, and sustainable groundwater management is essential to a reliable and resilient water system. The California Groundwater website offers links and news from state, local and non-governmental agencies.
Director McKenna, who is also active in the Valley Trails project, told the board that the formal trail planning process has so far focused primarily on the stretch of Highway 128 between the Mountain View Road intersection and the elementary school, a distance of approximately 1.3 miles. The estimated cost of constructing a “trail” over that stretch is — take a deep breath — $6.1 million. An application has been submitted through the local transportation planning office (MCOG) and, reportedly, there is a real, albeit low, probability that the $6.1 million 1.3-mile trail construction project will be funded by the State.
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