Waterboarded 

When I was a wee shredder, I vividly remember my shredder mom blaming me for something I didn't do. I mean, sure, most of the time when I got blamed for something, I did it. I'm a shredder after all, but this one time, I was totally innocent and despite my protestations, the blame remained on me like an ugly scarlet A.

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That's why I feel Janice Noll's pain. Since 2019, she's had to live with an ugly scarlet P for polluter. She and her family business were pegged in 2019 as the culprit behind a serious, groundwater-polluting trichloroethylene (TCE) spill on Buckley Road, where her family's thread-rolling shop, Noll Inc., has operated since the 1960s.

I'm not sure if her predicament is Kafkaesque or Orwellian, but essentially the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board decided her family's business was to blame because when they measured TCE levels at her business, concentrations were higher than a stoner on 4/20. She protested, arguing it couldn't be her since her business didn't use TCE, but like my shredder mom, that didn't stop the water board from beating the hell out of Noll with a wooden spoon.

OK, technically the "wooden spoon" was an order to go door-to-door to her neighbors on Buckley Road and change water filters protecting them against cancer-causing TCE ... to the tune of about $50K per year! Personally, I'd rather take the wooden spoon beating.

"When you're given an order like that, you do feel criminalistic in a sense. Because the neighbors ... they look at me like, 'Look what you did to my water.' It's horrible," Noll told New Times. "I think the community trusts the [water] board and the government. So once you put your trust in them, and they say that this person is the responsible party, then you believe that."

Here's the rub. As soon as she was accused, Noll pointed to another neighbor—Central Coast Laboratories (later renamed Pacific GeoScience Inc.)—that used TCE out the ying-yang to dissolve asphalt. Did the water board thoroughly investigate them? That'd be a negative, Ghost Rider. Instead, the board jumped to conclusions, slapped Noll with a penalty that's now cost her and her business about $200K, and despite now knowing they made a mistake, the water board has yet to rescind the order. More than a year ago, the water board discovered that TCE concentrations under Pacific GeoScience Inc. were higher than at Noll's property—174 times the federal drinking water standard!

"The hard part for me right now is the board has known now for almost a year and a half who the new responsible parties are, and they haven't rescinded my order," Noll said. "Why does it take so long? Why do I have to foot the bill? Every month I have to bleed more money to change those filters, and that's not right."

Not only did Noll's water and property get polluted too, but she got wrongly accused, humiliated, and monetarily damaged. But we live in a just world, right? The water board is going to apologize and get her money back, right? This is where Kafka or Orwell or whoever comes in.

The water board won't let go of its initial accusation because, according to engineering geologist Greg Bishop, there are "complicating factors." Apparently, Noll Inc. used TCA, a common TCE replacement—though that's not being investigated—and Noll Inc. apparently told the water board "verbally" in 2019 that TCE had been used "for cleaning office equipment" on-site. Was it a shredder? We do like to be kept clean.

Sounds to me like the water board doesn't want to admit it blew it. The board knew for decades the groundwater was polluted, and under increased pressure from the neighbors, finally decided to pin the blame on the easiest target based on circumstantial evidence. I would be pissed! And worse, the only recourse Noll has to recover the money she's spent protecting neighbors' water from Pacific GeoScience's polluting is to take whoever is ultimately found responsible to civil court.

And get this! Now the water board is accusing SLO County and Cal Fire of polluting the groundwater near the airport when they were conducting firefighting drills. I wonder if they'll be treated any better than Noll.

On a lighter note, the art critics have emerged from their chrysalises like judgy pupa to complain about new murals planned for Cambria, SLO Town, and Arroyo Grande, and they think the AG mural isn't colorful enough. Visit SLO CAL, an organization that promotes tourism in the county, plans to fund the three murals, which will be painted by local company Canned Pineapple Co. on three businesses' walls on private property.

Well, not so fast, Picasso! The Architectural Review Committee and AG City Council think the design is too monochromatic, and citizen critics Laurie Hall and Brian Talley agree ... not enough orange!

Hall said, "The artist [should] swap out purple flowers and butterflies for orange, so flowers can appear as either California poppy wildflowers or marigolds."

Talley argued, "It has an unusual green color covering the entire mural. Butterflies aren't even their beautiful orange color."

Orange you glad I didn't say banana? Δ

The Shredder sure could use a TCE bath about now. Wash behind its gears at [email protected].