In carrying out its investigation of the December 2010 sewage spill in Oceano, the State Water Board asked the South County sanitation district some very specific questions . The Wallace Group put together the response — two four-inch-thick binders presented at one of the sanitation district meetings.

The stakeholder city councils were briefed on part of that response because who has time to comb through hundreds of pages of information for relevant answers to basic questions? When the same point was indirectly raised at a district meeting, board members Bill Nicolls of Grover Beach and Tony Ferrara of Arroyo Grande decided that Wallace should try to get some face time with investigators to further describe their Getting a straight answer from the board of directors is an ongoing problem with the sanitation district.

The district has basic water quality standards to meet, and it has been unable to do that without dragging the district into a litigation pit. Don’t blame the water board for enforcing standards and expecting simple answers to basic questions. Blame the board of directors for a series of poor leadership and personnel decisions and for years of inadequate resourcing and planning.