By Guest Columnist Michael Ceremello; former Vice-Mayor/council member of the City of Dixon

“The reason why I asked for this to come up now is to start educating the public and to educate ourselves.  There isn’t anybody up here that has rolled over to play dead against the State, the governor, or the water board.  And I can assure you that this is a severe problem for our community and I think it’s important that we start becoming educated about it now so we can start taking action to come together as a community and do something positive … instead of being negative …instead of being blameful.  Come together, do something positive and work together.  That’s not what we do in this community unfortunately all the time and I think it is about time we started to do that.  And I can assure you this board, this council, will be able to lead this community and to be able to fight as best we can and do what we can to try and prevent this.”  Scat Pederson at Tuesday night’s council meeting at approximately 7:40 pm.

Educating to Scat is the same as it was for Mary Ann Courville.  It equals brainwashing.  The issue of the plus six valence state of the Chromium ion isn’t a new issue.  So why has it taken Scat Pederson over a year and a half to “educate” himself, let alone think he has the ability or intelligence to educate any one of us?

The facts speak for themselves.  The Federal government set their limit on total chromium in drinking water at 100 parts per billion.  The State of California’s original limit was 50 ppb.  The Department of Public Health received a mandate to examine that limit after the environmental whackos began complaining with no scientific evidence of the health dangers of any chromium in our water supply.  Yes, they wanted zero as the limit.  I was at those hearings, Scat.  Where were you?

The health department was charged with taking into account the economic effects on communities, along with other scientific principles which they also ignored.  After the health department got sued, the governor quickly passed the buck on to the State Water Board, an agency everyone seems to fear but me and a few others in the Dixon Chapter of Taxpayers.

Scat says no one rolled over and played dead.  So what did this council do and announce to the public when they did it?  Not a damn thing.  Now they claim they wrote a letter protesting the action.  Where is it?  When was it presented to the public?  Why was it hidden?

The bigger question is why they didn’t join the lawsuit filed against the State department of Health and why when I told them to sign on as a co-complainant Scat had nothing to say.  How is that working together?  How is that being positive?  Seems to me the council is the negative group only willing to expect our acceptance of their hand wringing and “there’s nothing we can do” attitude.  How is that any solution?

As for the council being able to lead, the only type of leading they show is attempting to lead us by our nose rings to slaughter.  How are you going to fight this?  All you know how to do is talk.  There is no action.  Fight the best we can says it all.  You have proven that you would rather fight your citizens than the State.  That’s why you sued us to prevent us from voting to overturn your stupid, incompetent, moronic action thereby confronting the State and their out of control, insipid, and vindictive water agency.

Please give me the scientific justification of your claim that “this is a severe problem for our community”.  Having well water with Chromium 6 concentrations of less than 20, well below the 220 parts per billion that it takes to affect humans, is no severe problem.  Do we have a single person who has ever been diagnosed with a chromium related medical problem?  No apologies to Erin Brockovich but drinking water in Dixon is hardly being polluted by a direct input from PG&E as it was for those people she admirably defended.  Get real, Scat, the only problem is your minuscule intellect.

The “severe problem” is having jerks like Scat Pederson attempting to provide leadership.  The only severe problem he sees is in not being able to convince the public to follow him like the rats followed the Pied Piper.  We aren’t rats, sheep, or the mayor’s inmates.  We can think for ourselves and you and the rest of the council are the severe problem, Scat.

I thought Scat was going to cry while using his best evangelical voice to call us “blameful”.  When your actions speak louder than your words, Scat, and they prove our points about your incompetence, your lies, and your kowtowing to those who are wrong, you are damn right we are going to criticize you.  If you think you get a free pass simply because you got elected to office through the help of the beautiful people from the Rot-ary who are ruining this town step by step, then you might think about resigning as you aren’t mentally tough enough for this job.

If you are wondering what caused these vehement, vicious, virulent verses, it was an informational item on how the city intends to “roll over” to the State’s demand that we comply with their new standard for Chromium 6 in our drinking water.  It seems that 4 of the city’s 5 wells have concentrations above 10 parts per billion.  Rather than fighting a faulty decision from the Department of Public Health, which did not comply with their duty as defined by law, this council is simply caving in as they did on the sewer plant issue.

Now these ne’er-do-wells intend to spend $1.5 million per well head to meet the State’s demands.  Who is going to pay for it?  You are.  On top of that, the new system they want to put in will cost about a quarter of a million per year to operate.  This will add a million per year in expenditures to the new city water system.

Although Darth Bogue pushed a doubling of the city’s water rates to fund capital improvement and rehabilitation programs, even that won’t be enough to meet this financial demand.  Rates will have to be doubled again.  You are going to think your $150 water and sewer bill was cheap when you get one totaling $500 per month because sewer won’t stay where it is either.  Or will it?

Rather than putting in an “ionic” solution as city engineer Joe Leach is pushing, from a Minnesota start up company which has yet to produce their product, the waste water committee pushed for reverse osmosis at the well head estimated to be around the same cost.  The difference in benefit is that all of the constituents other than water would be removed.  You would essentially be getting pure water, even better than water softener treated water, which would eliminate any need for a home water softener.

Gary Riddle of the Dixon Chapter of Taxpayers called it a double bang for your buck solution.  But Steve “Dodo” Bird disbanded the waste water committee because “they accomplished nothing”.  Good job, chucklehead.

So what impact would that have had on the treatment plant?  Salt would be all but eliminated, meeting the State’s scientifically ignorant demand to drop salt’s concentration far below what exists under the treatment plant.  Boron would also be affected as well as nitrates and dissolved metals or minerals.  About half of the supposed contaminants are supplied by the water we use for drinking obtained from deep water wells at 1500 feet.

What is interesting is the duplicitous treatment Leach is proposing.  A Minnesota company with an untested solution is being considered for well head treatment?  This is contradictory and hypocritical compared to his treatment of In-Pipe and Ferrate Treatment technology.  In-Pipe is proven technology and so is Ferrate to an extent but otherwise in a similar situation.  Rather than embrace this new technology, Leach rejected it on recommendations from the city’s consultant Stantec.  Stantec feared losing their big pay day.

As is to be expected of the liars on city staff, Leach skirted the question from Scat as to what other communities in California this impacts.  If I remember correctly, even at 10 ppb there were only three cities in California which were going to be affected.  Funny but Leach answered that all communities would be affected.  This is the same way that city liar, I mean lawyer, Doug White intentionally interprets questions to give duplicitous double speak answers.

All communities are impacted in that they must comply with the law.  Only three communities actually have water which exceeds the limit.  I didn’t hear Leach provide a list of communities and he didn’t say all communities were over the limit.  Even one of Dixon’s wells was under the limit.  Can you say “liar”?

Then we have our pontificating, controlling mayor extolling the virtues of Woodland and Davis who are bringing “surface water”, as in Lake Berryessa water but in this case Sacramento River water, into their communities to “blend” it with their polluted well water.  Jack Batchelor is certifiably out of his mind to even consider this type of option for Dixon because of its enormous cost.

But this is how liberals think.  They want to price us all out of existence.  They want California to be pristine and free from the pollutants known as humans.  They have soared our medical insurance to the point neither businesses or individuals can afford it.  With a water and sewer bill at $1000 per month, that is $12000 per year, the only ones who will be able to live in Dixon are going to be wealthy farmers, government employees, and those employed by the city.

I hope Scat and Jack attempt to halt me when I am “blameful” of them at the next meeting during public comment.  You may limit the public to three minutes of speaking time, but you are going to have one hell of a time attempting to control what I say during those three minutes.  I believe the term is “content neutral” which is a bad joke if I ever heard one.

The only reason Jack and his boys put in a speaking limit is they don’t like the “content” when it is criticism.  Next time, Dixon, you might think about electing some mature people to be your leaders instead of the babies we currently have.  I am getting tired of changing their diapers and getting them a bottle down at Bud’s …