LAKE COUNTY — The Board of Supervisors (BOS) talked about several water-related issues during its meeting Tuesday but postponed discussion of one topic that would affect most lake users in the short-term.
The BOS was set to consider an ordinance proposing changes to the Lake County Code section regarding the inspection program for vessels intending to launch into county water bodies.
The regulations are part of the county”s effort to protect Clear Lake and other waterways from invasive mussels.
A person found in violation of the current law would be charged with a misdemeanor, and face a minimum $1,000 fine and as many as six months in county jail if convicted.
Those penalties created an “inadvertent complication of the prosecution of offenders” and “did not provide enforcement officers with the latitude to issue citations for lesser degrees of infraction,” Water Resources Director Scott De Leon wrote in a memo to the BOS.
County staff worked to develop changes to address the issues, but the proposed ordinance wasn”t ready for BOS consideration Tuesday, according to De Leon.
As a result, the item was pulled and will be discussed at a future time.
In other business at the Lake County Courthouse, the BOS voted 4-0 in favor of installing and staffing two boat-cleaning stations. District 3 Supervisor Denise Rushing was absent for the discussion.
Also aimed at improving the invasive mussel prevention program, the stations would “help make sure that ”at-risk” boats are not allowed to enter the lake without being checked and cleaned,” according to De Leon.
One station will be in Lakeport at the Campbell Lane Yard while the second will be placed at an undetermined location near the south end of Clear Lake, he said.
The facilities, which will contain hot pressure washers, will be available on an on-call basis until the seasonal workers receive training and are in place, according to De Leon.
The BOS also received a presentation from county consultant Jim Steele about preliminary results of studies conducted by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas using water and bottom sediments from Clear Lake.
Steele said the studies indicated, “The invasive quagga mussels can survive in Clear Lake water and probably do better in Clear Lake than Lake Mead. We have to be very apprised of that. And extremely high turbidity concentration is lethal to quagga mussels.”
The final report is not completed.
Earlier in the meeting, the BOS voted 5-0 to draft a letter to state representatives and the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board regarding fines and penalties for the Riviera West Mutual Water Company.
The company”s president, Tom Smythe, told the supervisors that a proposed control board administrative civil liability order imposed a minimum mandatory penalty of $2.844 million on the company for alleged failure to submit monitoring reports and violations based on late reports.
The penalty is more than eight times the company”s annual income and could force it to dissolve, Smythe said.
Sitting as the Board of Housing Commissioners, the supervisors talked about a proposed letter to notify Rural Communities Housing Development Corp. that no more funds would be disbursed pursuant to an agreement for an affordable housing project on Collier Avenue in Nice, in light of the dissolution of the redevelopment agency.
The board voted unanimously to approve of sending the letter.
The BOS voted 5-0 in favor of a $5,000 contribution to help kick-start the Clearlake Summer Recreation Program.
“If you prime the pump, we”ll take it from here,” Bill MacDougall told the supervisors.
The six-week program hopes to provide “40 at-risk, high-needs youth in Clearlake” with “intellectual, artistic and physical growth,” according to MacDougall.
For more information about the youth program, call MacDougall at 279-8935.
