Civil Grand Jury withdraws error-riddled report on aged Chualar sewage system.

Taqueria Hidalgo, garnishing the Highway 101 overpass like a roasted jalapeño, is a destination for fans of tacos al pastor and mojarra frita. But its plumbing pipes – along with those of 170 other water connections in County Service Area 75 – mark the start of another migration, one that’s drawn the attention of the Monterey County Civil Grand Jury (CGJ).

Wastewater from Chualar’s residents and businesses flows through gravity-fed pipes to a central pumping station east of the highway, then through 2 more miles of pipe under Chualar River Road. It ends up in a pentagon-shaped patch of county-operated sewage holding ponds next to the Salinas River.

On April 18, the CGJ released an interim report calling on the county to upgrade or replace the 49-year-old Chualar sewer system.

“It is the opinion of the CGJ that deterioration of the Chualar sewage system will cause major problems, including health issues,” the report states.

The findings include some gross tidbits: that raw sewage often spills out of fractured pipe under the highway, that much of the sewage pipeline is made of rolled-up tar paper and that the holding ponds have overflowed into the Salinas River eight times.

One hitch – most of those statements, according to County Public Works Director Robert Murdoch, are wrong. The river has inundated the holding ponds during major flood events, he says, but sewage hasn’t spilled under the highway, and the pipes are made of clay and plastic.

“It just gives the wrong impression,” he says of the report. “I think it’s a misunderstanding.”

It probably is. Civil Grand Jury Foreman Francis Small says an early draft of the report was accidentally published, then quickly withdrawn.

“To say this is an embarrassment is to put it mildly,” he says. “There were a number of factual areas where we were clearly wrong.” The CGJ is “triple fact-checking” the report before releasing a revision, he adds.

Neither Small nor Assistant County Counsel Les Girard will specify the changes, due to confidentiality rules, until the revised report is published, likely next week.

The fact that the system needs attention remains, Murdoch says, and he’s been seeking federal and state funding for it. The first steps are rehabilitating the pump station, ponds and collection system at a cost of about $1.8 million, he says. The long-term vision is to upgrade the system and relocate it outside of the Salinas River floodplain, at an additional $6 million.

The improvements will mean higher rates for customers in the 97-percent-Hispanic community, who now pay $13.92 per connection per month.

But they can’t afford all the needed upgrades, Murdoch says: “We need to fund capital improvements without putting an undue burden on the community.”

Public Works is now seeking state and federal funding to make up the difference, he says, and has already secured a $200,000 federal Community Development Block Grant for valve and pump station upgrades now underway.

“Everybody understands it’s an older system,” Murdoch says. “[Compared] with infrastructure in the state and in the country, it’s unfortunately not an unusual situation.”