Ralph Johnson is a candidate for CVSan Board in 2014. Castro Valley Matters reached out to each candidate, asking them to provide a statement.

My Qualifications

I have served our community for the last 14 years as a Sanitary District Board Member. I graduated from UC Berkeley with a BS degree in Civil Engineering and am a professional Civil Engineer and have over 40 years of experience specializing in Public Works. I retired from the Alameda County Public Works Agency in 2000 as a Deputy Director of Public Works.

My family and I have lived in Castro Valley for over 35 years. My wife, Sherry, is retired from the Castro Valley Unified School District and both our daughters graduated from Castro Valley High. My wife and I are currently helping our daughter, Karin, establish a small business, Karin Johnson Specialty Cakes and Pastries, here in Castro Valley.

I am the President of the Alameda County Library Foundation. I sit on the joint committee with Oro Loma Sanitary District that has oversight of our waste water treatment plant in San Lorenzo. I also sit on the East Bay Dischargers Authority Board and the Local Agency Formation Commission.

I have the knowledge and experience to address our wastewater and solid waste needs. I have a passion for public service and have the proven tools to assist the District in preserving and enhancing our investment in the sewage and solid waste systems.

I would like to address two issues, our aging infrastructure and CVSan’s Zero Solid Waste Plan.

Aging Infrastructure

Most of the time, people don’t pay a lot of attention to their sewer system. Everyone flushes toilets or lets water and suds drain down sinks and showers without much thought about where it ends up. CVSan’s job is to ensure that pipelines that take your sewage are in good repair, remain free of clogs, and convey sewage to the treatment plant. Our system has two components, laterals that run from the buildings to the main collection system and the main collection system. The laterals are normally owned and maintained by individual property owners and the mains are owned and maintained by CVSan. Both systems are old and reaching the ends of their useful life. This can be seen in the amount of rain that enters our system. During the winter rains, flow can double or triple and this increased flow can cause overflows and other operational problems. The CVSan Board has adopted polices which I support and would like to see continued, to address both problems.

For the laterals, we have a grant program that provides up to $2,000 for a homeowner to repair an aging sewer lateral. We budget $50,000 annually for these grants and because the homeowner typically spends another $4,000 for the repair, our public investment of $50,000 results in $150,000 in improvements to the laterals in the sewer system.

For the main lines, we have adopted a Sanitary Sewer Management Plan. This plan identifies approximately $1.0 to $1.5 million in pay as you go funds to be spent annually for main line system repairs and/or replacements and will, over time, contribute to a significant reduction in wet weather flow problems.

Zero Solid Waste Plan

The amount of garbage sent to the landfill by residents and businesses from CVSan’s service area has been reduced by 57% over the last seven years. Our residents have found that by recycling and/or composting, they don’t have to waste or landfill discards. CVSan has adopted a strategic plan (Zero Waste Plan) to guide us towards a goal of reducing garbage to the landfill by 90%. As we shrink the amount of garbage to the landfill, we will have to address to true cost of dealing with our discards. Recycling and composting have expenses, including trucks, employees to operate the trucks and sort and process our discards. Fortunately, the garbage industry is changing the way it looks at garbage. They now identify revenue from the collection of waste to what they make for “doing something” with the waste whether it is processing, recycling or converting the waste to fuel or power. They now make nearly half as much revenue from recycling as they do from traditional disposal at landfills. Our strategic plan identifies strategies to maximize value from waste and translate this into savings and I support this effort.