BBARWA Board Considers Incorporating Fawnskin Into Valley-Wide Sewer System

The Big Bear Area Regional Wastewater Agency Board on Wednesday considered the possibility of incorporating the Fawnskin area for sewer services by BBARWA, which presently serves the rest of the Valley, including those within the City of Big Bear Lake and the service area of the Big Bear City Community Services District. BBARWA’s newest Governing Board member Tom Brandau, who represents the Fawnskin area on the Board that includes Big Bear Lake representation from City Council members Rick Herrick and Liz Harris and East Valley representation from CSD Directors John Day and Rick Ollila, had asked that this item be agendized for discussion at BBARWA’s September 23 general meeting. Following Board discussion, according to BBARWA’s General Manager Steve Schindler, “Essentially, the Board asked staff to contact the County to see about the feasibility. The County’s initial thoughts are that they should continue to provide this service as they can do it in a more economical way than BBARWA can. If Fawnskin was going to become part of the regional system, we might have to buy it–as we did with one of the lines of CSD—because it is an asset to the County at this time.” At present, the County collects the waste from approximately 1,250 homes and commercial establishments in Fawnskin and the North Shore, from the dam to Division, and delivers it to the BBARWA facility for transport treatment disposal. Board member Brandau suggested that BBARWA could do this in a more efficient manner, and though the overall Board was split, given concerns that agencies such as CSD and the City would end up subsidizing the County system, BBARWA staff will have another, as-yet-unscheduled, meeting with the County to review the proposal. Adds GM Schindler, “We’ll meet with the County, and try to identify all the services they provide and then put a BBARWA cost to that and then see, from our perspective, which one is more economical.”