Solvang is in deep doo-doo. Technically, it’s not deep yet, but it could be if it actually rains.
On Dec. 3, the city’s Julefest Parade hits the streets complete with horses and their accompanying excrement—a steamingly hot topic at the Nov. 28 City Council meeting, where they talked about the most boring topic of them all: stormwater.
Thankfully, the great poop discussion brought everyone back around to what’s important: where that rainwater runoff goes and what it contains when it gets there. Once those horsey hockey pucks pile up, will the rain carry them to the Santa Ynez River? Councilmember Mark Infanti wanted to know.
“Stormwater goes down the drains, and gets filtered at some point in time, and then is released to the river?” he asked at the meeting.
“We don’t have a filtration system,” city Public Works Director Rodger Olds told him.
So all of those cigarette butts, dog, chicken, and cat poop, just stream right into the river during storms? Yep.
Luckily for Julefesters, the city requires organizers to hire a street sweeper to sweep up anything that doesn’t belong. Phew!
Good thing the city encourages the public to clean up after their pets and provides Mutt Mitts at 14 dog waste stations throughout Solvang. I’m sure everyone uses them, not! Councilmember Claudia Orona, who picks up after her trolley horses during the parade, suggested that Solvang look into a possible stormwater filtration system.
It’s not just dookie heading down those streetside drains, it’s chemicals, pesticides, oil, gas, and whatever else humans leave laying around outside.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calls urban stormwater the only major source of water pollution that’s growing across the country and estimated that $67 billion is needed for infrastructure and storm sewer systems over the next 20 years. Maybe Solvang can try to dip into the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding—$11.7 billion over the next five years—because cleaning crap out of water isn’t cheap.
But the city should get a plan in place now, so it doesn’t have to scramble to create a project to apply for grant money when the time comes. Learn from Santa Barbara County, which should already have a farmworker resource center in place to support agricultural workers but doesn’t, according to 5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino and 3rd District Supervisor Joan Hartmann.
The county is scurrying to nab more than $800,000 from the state that would help create such a center, one that would need to survive past the one-time funding that could kick-start it. Is a harried fever pitch the best way to start providing a much-needed resource?
Lavagnino said nope: “We’re going to create a million-dollar program, and then, when the state funding runs out, we are committed to a million-plus [for] this new program,” he said during the Nov. 29 meeting, adding that county staff should take more time to do a deeper dive into what the community really needs and who to partner with to meet those needs before pulling the trigger.
The one-time funding trap is one that social services in the county are constantly battling against. Isn’t it time to think a little harder about how to make a program last before applying for funding?
The Canary is up shit creek. Send paddles to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 1-8, 2022.