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Woodacre residents urge Marin supervisors to fund EIR for long-stalled wastewater project
Summary
Woodacre Flats residents told the Board the neighborhood has repeated septic failures and waterborne pathogens in creeks and asked the county to fund an environmental impact report and staff support so community-backed designs can proceed.
Residents of Woodacre urged the Marin County Board of Supervisors to fund an environmental impact report (EIR) for a long-planned community wastewater solution. Kristen Anderson, a Woodacre Flats project spokesperson, said decades of county and outside studies have produced proposals that stalled after the golf course owner sold the property formerly planned as treatment site.
Several speakers described recurrent septic system failures and flood-related overflows in the low-lying flats. Rich Lohman, a member of the Whitaker Flats wastewater team, said county creek tests found human pathogens and recounted a 2005 septic pumping that produced 1,200 gallons — more than his tank’s 800-gallon capacity — as evidence of regular contamination. Bruce Wick and Elizabeth Imholtz urged the Board to fund the final-stage EIR and staff support so designs by Cuesta Engineering and other consultants can move forward.
The petitioners framed the request as both a public-health and climate-resilience priority: speakers said high groundwater and atmospheric-river events increasingly undermine on-site septic systems in low-lying Woodacre. Imholtz cited the Local Area Management Plan (LAMP) regulatory changes that will increase scrutiny for septic systems near streams and said delaying an EIR risks losing compliance windows and funding opportunities.
The presenters asked for county funding to complete the EIR, for staff time to shepherd the project, and for the Board to prioritize community-led solutions. County staff later indicated responsibility for wastewater planning is transitioning to Public Works and that funding for project studies was planned for the second year of the draft budget work plan; supervisors asked staff to return with more detail on financing, operations and the prospects for cost-recovery or external grant funding.
The Board did not take a formal vote during this workshop; staff said the Woodacre request would be considered in budget deliberations and noted any programmed EIR expense would be discussed as part of one-time funding allocations.
