RE: 'FPUD wastes ratepayers' money'

I see that like Rip Van Winkle, Archie McPhee has roused from his slumber with his typical fumbling of the facts – so much inaccuracy and so little time.

Passing by Archie’s feeble ad-hominine attacks on his betters, I’ll focus on the issues he raises where things like facts exist:

Yes, Archie, there is a Surface Water Treatment rule. Had you spent more of your time as an Assistant Engineer for the City of San Diego doing what you were assigned instead of crawling into confined spaces, you would know about this evolving regulation which bans open distribution reservoirs without treatment as of 2009. To enable Fallbrook to retain use of the valuable Red Mountain Reservoir, FPUD became the first agency in California to propose to follow the EPA’s UV Guidance Manual (2006) to meet the new rule. On May 11, the State approved in concept the use of this new disinfectant process at Red Mountain. Archie, and you readers, may be interested to know this will save ratepayers the construction and operation of a filtration plant at Red Mountain, about $20 million plus operation. You’re welcome, Arch!

Moving on to the sludge drying process at the water reclamation plant: Archie would have you believe that the present sludge handling operation is free. The fact of the matter is that we ratepayers will save money on sludge if we have to pay landfill tipping fees to dispose of it. The reason for this is the fact that fuel costs have risen to the point where it is cheaper to remove the water (90 percent by weight) before you haul... duh! The fact that you get a valuable fertilizer is a plus but not a necessity. If Archie would prefer to keep buying petrochemical-based fertilizer with oil at $70 a barrel that is certainly his right.

You know, about the only thing that would startle me is if Archie actually followed my mama’s instruction that if I didn’t have something nice to say, to say nothing at all.

Joseph F. Jackson