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Recap of CA Cleanup Fund Task Force Meeting, 10-2-2009

Rec-for-Immed-Term-Action.pdf

We were not given any handouts this meeting of any significance, however, we did finalize the attached letter that we are presenting to the Board as an interim report on our progress. We are on the Board’s agenda on Tuesday October 6th as an informational item. We have been told we will be towards the end of the meeting somewhere between 10 am to noon. The meeting will be webcast and the Public will be able to comment. Allan Patton expects the Board will have questions of Ron Duff and himself regarding our recommendations.

Other noteworthy items:
We toured the 17th floor, CUF Payments and Technical units. In all not too exciting or reveiling, but I did learn the following from the Technical Review Unit (M. McKrink/ D. Charter/B. Trommer) worth passing on to everyone:

CUF is reviving the Pre-approval Process, but not necessarily for every activity, only major work scopes. (CUF highly recommends obtaining pre-approval).

What’s different about pre-approval this time?
• CUF is meeting with Oversight Agency from the start. Striving to communicate with such agencies during quarterly roundtable discussions (at minimum).
• CUF is committed to 30 day turnaround of Pre-approvals requests.

Have you ever wondered when an RR must go through the Technical Review Unit? (When a RR goes through Tech Review, an additional week (minimum) is required to process the RR internally. Recommended to try to keep RR’s out of Tech Review if you want it to be processed faster.)

Automatic Technical Review Unit Criteria:
• All first time (initial) RR’s
• All Commingled Plume RR’s
• Any single RR in excess of $150K or cumulative of $150 over 1 year period.
• All Soil Excavation RR’s (regardless of dollar amount)
• All Remediation RR’s (regardless of dollar amount)
• Any complicated claim that the Payments Unit refers to Technical Staff.

No additional handout was provided this time to the Task Force by the Payments Unit regarding the status of payments. However, Status of Payments was heavily discussed during the meeting. Specifically, the TF members inquired as to why all payments from the July revenues haven’t been made as of 10/1 (8+ weeks after the deposit of funds on or about 7/25). We weren’t given many specifics other than… the Payments Unit now has a “process” they didn’t have to do before with the payments on hold before “releasing” the payment. We expressed our dissatisfaction with the delay in getting payments “out the door” in a more timely manner. Allan Patton said he heard us loud and clear. (Ron Duff and Toro Okamoto were also in attendance.) We were told that even it hasn’t been posted to the “Payments List”, that all Payments for A, C, D & Commingled Plume claims have been sent to the Controller’s office for checks (as of 10/1). Approx $15M (or a little less) of Priority B claims are still being processed and should be sent to the Controller’s office in the near future (but not given any date).

Special note: The next CUF Task Force meeting on 10/19 was previously scheduled to be held in Riverside, CA at the Santa Ana Regional Board, however, due to lack of public attendance/participation at the last meeting held in Los Angeles, the 10/19 meeting has been moved to Sacramento.

You may be interested in attending the SWRCB Board Meeting on November 17th. Allan Patton is scheduled to report to the Board on Resolution 2009-0042. This will be more than an informative issue and perhaps will be similar to the March 9, 2009 SWRCB Meeting.