Guest editorial: North Auburn's plumbing issue

Placer County has a problem in North Auburn. The wastewater (sewage/storm water) conveyance system is at capacity. In fact, when there is a heavy rain event, they are praying manhole covers don't start blowing off. The proposed fix is going to be rather unpleasant for North Auburn residents. What the county is proposing is to run a new 16-inch line in the Highway 49 right-of-way starting near the border of the city limits of Auburn and going north (approximately two miles) until it reaches Quartz Drive, where it will make a left to go down that street. At that point, the pipe size goes up to 24 inches. It then turns and goes up Richardson Drive, past Auburn Regional Park, crossing Dry Creek Road and continuing on Richardson Drive through a densely populated residential neighborhood until it reaches the collection location on Joeger Road. The natural question is why is the new line diverting and severely impacting the Quartz and Richardson residents? The answer is that Caltrans will not allow utilities to be placed in their right-of-way unless there is no other viable route for those utilities. The only option for the alignment of the piece that is planned for placement in Highway 49 is that lone course, but at Quartz Drive there is alternative, but it means going through residential communities for more than a mile. Recently, the new gas station at Nevada Street and Highway 49 had to shut down the number two lane in the southbound direction to do a short piece of paving. Since the south traffic was reduced to one lane, it got backed up past New Airport Road. Can you image what it will be like when one lane is closed off for months during this pipeline construction? Drivers will be looking for any other choice than going on Highway 49 during the construction. Unfortunately, there are not many options for getting around this work. There are some back country roads, such as Mt. Vernon Road, but these are narrow, windy and hilly roadways that are not designed for heavy or fast traffic. The first phase of the project will be on Quartz and Richardson. The total projected costs for the entire new pipeline is estimated to be $20 million. I suspect that is a low number, given the high likelihood of hitting a significant amount of rock. Right now, the county only has about $4.5 million for the project and that is coming from the Federal CARES Act, which is a pandemic relief fund. They are trying to find other monetary sources to at least get the first phase underway. Given the maxed-out capacity issue, Placer County sees this as a very urgent project to get completed. Questions to that would be: Why would the county have allowed development in North Auburn to out-strip the ability to safely handle the wastewater flows during peaks? Why wouldn't fees from developers be contributing to this problem, which their projects created, rather than putting that burden on longtime North Auburn residents? Wayne Nader is a North Auburn resident and Placer County Supervisor District 5 candidate.