March 6, 2015 – Daily Brief

Big news about the Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District's plan to drill a 6000+ foot deep sewage brine water injection well into Santa Clarita's main bedrock formation, the Saugus Formation (which is also the location of Santa Clarita Valley's back-up drinking water aquifer, the Saugus Aquifer, which is actually in use now because of the drought.) The deep well injection of the brine aka the DWI, is currently scheduled to be located at a location in Stephenson Ranch/Westridge. However, the SCV Sanitation District Directors (Mike Antonovich, Laurene Weste and Marsha McLean) have pledged to move the well away from residential areas "West of the 5". So, quite obviously the DWI could be moved to Castaic, Saugus, Canyon Country, Newhall or Valencia, based on the whims of the Los Angeles County Sanitation District's powerful and self-important Chief Engineer, Grace Robinson Hyde and its General Counsel Westley Beverlin, a partner at the law firm of Lewis Brisbois Bisgard & Smith LLP in Downtown L.A. [As an aside, apparently Mr. Beverlin's favorite money making activity (at taxpayer expense) is to sue ordinary property owners to take easements over, on and under their land for government agencies. See Mr. Beverlin's list of "Representative Cases" at http://www.lewisbrisbois.com/attorneys/bev The last 20 or so pages of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Report on the "new well site" in Stephenson Ranch contains a veiled warning to local residents to shut the heck up or they will me sued by the Sanitation District in eminent domain cases. That's pretty novel, local government suing its taxpayers...] However, the proverbial political shirt is hitting the fan this weekend as the text of a letter sent to Mike, Laurene and Marsha on 3/6/15 circulates. Two enterprising West Ranchers contacted the California Earthquake Authority on 3/5/15 and 3/6/15, and the California Earthquake Authority authorized the making of a statement to the public that the CEA would not authorize payment for property on any earthquake insurance policy if the CEA felt that an earthquake was caused, or the damage was exacerbated, by the existence of the DWI anywhere in the Santa Clarita Valley. "email sent on 3/6/15 "Dear Michael, Marsha, Laurene, and Mark, Thank you for your support for finding the right solution to the Chloride limit problem in the Santa Clarita Valley. Confirming what I told you in my email of 3/5/2015, the California Earthquake Authority authorized me to quote the following two statements by them: "The California Earthquake Authority only covers earthquakes caused by tectonic processes." "The California Earthquake Authority does not cover man-made earthquakes such as those induced by fracking or deep well injection." Here is their policy and the full text of point #8: http://www.earthquakeauthority.com/insuran 8. “Earthquake” means a vibration-generating rupture event caused by displacement within the earth’s crust through release of strain associated with tectonic processes and includes effects such as ground shaking, liquefaction, and damaging amplification of ground motion. While land sliding, including seismically-induced land sliding, is not itself an earthquake, we cover, subject to “LOSSES EXCLUDED” item 5 and subject to all other terms and conditions of this policy, loss to covered property arising out of a seismically-induced landslide if that landslide is induced by, and would not have occurred in the absence of, an earthquake that commences during the policy period as part of a seismic event that commences during the policy period. Earthquake does not mean or include tsunami or volcanic eruption. Credit goes to [Westside Resident 2] for making the original phone call to the CEA and discovering this issue on 3/5/2015. Credit also goes to a very kind lawyer in the Santa Clarita Valley for the advice to require the CEA to vet and certify a safe minimum distance from the DWI site, such that legitimate insurance claim payouts would not be jeopardized. Thank you for your help in this critical matter, [Westside Resident 1]" So now, incredibly, the Santa Clarita Valley Sanitation District's staff, consultants and lawyers have just about iced the the cake, in destroying the credibility and political careers of Laurene Weste and Marsha McLean, by destroying the California Earthquake Authority earthquake insurance coverage paid for by home owners all across the Santa Clarita Valley, and by threatening to sue home owners if they resist granting easements on residential property under which the DWI (deep brine injection well) and its huge underground lake of brine which will be filled at the rate of 500,000 gallons of brine water per day, in perpetuity. No telling whether Laurene and Marsha were smart enough to see the loss of earthquake insurance claims payments happening as a consecuence of their decision making. What will Laurene and Marsha do to save their political careers? Will Laurene and Marsha jump out of the Stevenson Ranch/West Ranch political firestorm, only to jump into some other political firestorm by voting on a Sanitation District staff recommendation to relocate the deep brine injection weill (DWI) into other populated areas of wildly angering residents of some other part of the Santa Clarita Valley by destroying those new victims earthquake insurance? Stay tuned.