BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

Royal Gorge LLC has presented several options for sewage effluent disposal.   One of the methods involves a newfangled leach field, up in the hard rock table-land northwest of the proposed "Lake Camp."  Anyone who's ever lived with a septic system knows the importance of permeable soil. In Royal Gorge LLC's case, it looks like Summit geology is not going to cooperate with their plans.

Blackburn Consulting's Soil Unit Map, figure 6, of the geotechnical report recently released by Royal Gorge LLC,  gives new meaning to the phrase "between a rock and a hard place"  Look up at the upper left hand corner, where the sub- surface irrigation/leach field is proposed. Notice all the 1s and 5s? 1marks the areas where the soil is gravelly sandy loam overlying weathered tuff/granitic rock, with a soil depth of 2-3 feet. 5 is exposed rock or cobbly loam and cobbly sandy loam over rock(granitic or volcanic), with a depth of 0 to 2.5 feet.  It would be a gross understatement to say that these conditions are less than ideal for a functional sub-surface irrigation/leach field.  It seems that a large part of our Sierra Nevada just wasn't built to soak up sewage effluent.

So, dumping it down the South Yuba River, and spraying it on the hills  are Royal Gorge LLC's only realistic options. Now if they can only figure out how to pay for it all......*

* They plan on using Mello- Roos, and boy can that get complicated, especially if they try to expand the Mello-Roos district into SLCWD and/or DSPUD- we all may be paying for their water and sewage, one way or another.