Gov. Gavin Newsom may have to step in to resolve a dispute between a state agency and a high-profile lawmaker over “Complete Streets” – a core concept of modern “smart growth” planners that holds streets should provide safe access and use not just to vehicles but to pedestrians and those using other types of transportation.

Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, says Caltrans is trying to sandbag his “Complete Streets” measure, Senate Bill 127. While it doesn’t impose any formal requirements on Caltrans, the bill does require the agency to study adding improvements that accommodate pedestrians, bicyclists and transit when fixing an existing road or building a new one.

The bill has passed the state Senate, the Assembly Transportation Committee and, last week, the Assembly Appropriations Committee on largely party-line votes. It seems likely to reach Newsom’s desk after the full Assembly approves it within the next two weeks.

Caltrans sees proposed rule as very costly

But Wiener was unhappy enough with a Caltrans communication on the expected cost of his measure that he depicted the agency as underhanded in a recent interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Caltrans said compliance costs would be so high – $4.5 million per mile of blacktop and more than $1 billion a year – that it would be unable to meet its road improvement obligations that are part of the 2017 law increasing the state’s gasoline tax. The agency also said Wiener’s measure would make it impossible to satisfy the conditions of grants from the Federal Highway Administration.

Wiener wrote two weeks ago to David Kim – secretary of California State Transportation Agency, which oversees Caltrans – that this cost estimate was so “severely inflated” that it “undermines the agency’s credibility.” He said evidence from local governments suggested that SB127’s costs would be from $20,000 to $600,000 per mile, depending on the nature of the project.

Wiener also told the Chronicle that Caltrans appears to think it would be obligated to put up bike lanes on all its projects when in fact the main priority is the “little towns all over California where their main street is a state highway. … That’s where businesses are. That’s where people are walking around. That’s where the school is. Some of them don’t have crosswalks.”

Caltrans an early fan of ‘Complete Streets’

But Caltrans’ history undercuts Wiener’s claim that its high estimates are being driven by outdated views that see roads as being for cars and cars only. Caltrans was one of the first state transportation agencies to embrace “Complete Streets” in 2008. In a 2015 interview with Governing magazine, Malcolm Dougherty – then Caltrans director – touted the agency’s commitment to the concept.

And in 2017, Dougherty used a Caltrans news release to tout the exact sort of “Complete Streets” project – on State Route 62 in Joshua Tree – that Wiener called his priority.

The news release quoted Dougherty as saying the project “used funds from a current construction project to restripe the downtown section of Joshua Tree with bike lanes and diagonal parking in order to more safely move vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists through the downtown business district … [providing] meaningful improvements that create streets which move all users safely and efficiently along and across the roadway.”

Dougherty resigned his Caltrans post last year. His replacement, Caltrans engineer Laurie Berman, is a strong proponent of “Complete Streets” as well. She told a Streetsblog writer in November that while she had worked at Caltrans, her agency had “gone from being heavily criticized for not knowing anything about ‘Complete Streets’ to establishing a Center of Excellence, and providing tools that we can all use, statewide, to move forward together and build facilities that are useful to everyone.”

Berman reports to Kim.

The California Highway Patrol’s overtime scandal – in which more than 100 officers from its East Los Angeles branch may have inflated their overtime while helping Caltrans workers stay safe while doing freeway maintenance work – could explode into a statewide scandal. That’s contrary to claims made when the scandal first emerged in February, when CHP officials said a survey of other commands turned up no similar false claims.

Former Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley and a team of attorneys are representing more than 30 of the accused CHP officers. According to a Los Angeles Times report, 14 accused officers are facing termination while 90 more are still being investigated. Cooley says about 40 in total are at risk of being fired.

The main allegation facing officers: That they would seek eight hours of overtime pay after only being needed by Caltrans to work half that many hours or less on protection details.

Overtime spiking called common across state

But in court documents and in comments to the Times, Cooley says he can establish several points countering the CHP’s claims about the case. The most serious: The practice of padding such overtime is common in many of the 103 CHP commands around the state, according to former CHP officers. This would mean that Caltrans was overcharged by far more than the $360,000 that CHP has already documented.

Cooley also alleged that several middle- and upper-level CHP officials, including one who helped launch the East L.A. probe, engaged in the same questionable overtime billing practice when they were lower-ranking officers from 2007 to 2009.

The CHP is so far resisting releasing related documents requested by Cooley’s team and the media, saying the information is related to the ongoing investigation of the scandal.

But the involvement of another state agency with its own reputation to protect makes it seem unlikely that CHP can keep the lid on the scandal, as it tried to do on other internal problems earlier this century.

In February, Caltrans Director Laurie Berman announced that the agency’s inspector general would do a thorough audit of the CHP-Caltrans relationship.

“Caltrans takes violations of the law very seriously and illegal activity of any kind is not tolerated within the department,” Berman said in a statement to the Times. “If it is determined there was Caltrans employee misconduct, disciplinary action will be taken.”

Caltrans has not disclosed a timetable for when the inspector general’s audit will be released.

Scandal echoes those seen in Schwarzenegger years

The scandal marks the end to a decade of relative quiet for California’s largest law-enforcement agency. Among the allegations against the CHP during the Schwarzenegger administration:

• In 2009, the Ventura County Star reported that there was strong evidence that CHP officials impeded a hate-crimes investigation of a local CHP officer involved in a racially charged incident after officers held a party at an Oxnard hotel.

• In 2006, the Sacramento Bee reported that the CHP spent nearly $50 million on helicopters and motorcycles that were not open to competitive bidding. The companies given the contracts – Eurocopters and BMW, respectively – had courted top CHP officials with gifts and meals.

• In 2004, the Bee reported on the “Chiefs’ Disease” phenomenon in which 80 percent of top CHP officials filed for medical disabilities in late career, enabling them to get much more generous pensions. Because police discipline records were then confidential, Bee reporters confirmed the scandal through worker’s compensation claims filed by the CHP executives.

A CHP attorney threatened the Bee with a lawsuit if the records were used in the Bee’s reporting, saying the records were confidential. The Bee went ahead with the story, prompting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to eventually force out then-CHP Commissioner D.O. “Spike” Helmick.

Reason’s 22^nd Annual Highway Report ranked California 42nd. While this is still in the lowest category, the ranking has steadily improved over the years, moving up from a low of 46th. Because of data-collection delays, the rankings only go through 2013.

The study measures a number of important factors: Road conditions on freeways and primary commercial highways, the state of each state’s bridges, fatality rates and various costs per mile – administrative, maintenance, capital costs and expenditures.

California has done particularly poorly on the spending side of the equation. It ranked 44th in total disbursements per mile; 43rd in maintenance disbursements per mile; 40th in capital and bridge disbursements per mile; and 47th in administrative disbursements. That reinforces a California state auditor study from last summer showing that Caltrans may have as many as 3,500 unnecessary job positions.

The state’s overall per-mile capital and bridges cost totaled nearly $170,000 – far costlier than highest-ranked South Carolina, at nearly $21,000, or middle-ranked Utah, at nearly $78,000. But California wasn’t nearly the worst. Worst-ranked New Jersey spends $839,000 per mile; Florida spends more than $380,000; and Illinois spends nearly $202,000. On administrative costs, California spends more than $47,000 per mile, compared to $1,107 per mile in top-ranked Kentucky and $3,762 in 10th ranked Texas.

On the bad side, California had one of the highest proportions of rural interstate mileage in poor condition, at 6.52 percent. Its urban interstate mileage in poor condition was even worse, at 13.32 percent, which isn’t a surprise to anyone who regularly navigates the Los Angeles, San Diego or Bay Area highway systems. The survey only looks at state-owned highway systems, not at the myriad local and regional systems that are in various conditions.

“The good news is that California reported the lowest percentage of deficient bridges of any state in the nation,” according to Reason Vice President Adrian Moore, writing in the Orange County Register. California also ranked 10th in highway fatalities with a rate of 0.9 per 100 million vehicle miles. The best performance was in Massachusetts, with 0.58 fatalities per 100 million miles and the worst was Montana, with 1.9 fatalities per 100 million miles. Those rates, however, have been dropping nationwide.

One of the survey’s authors, Reason Senior Fellow David T. Hartgen, told me Caltrans didn’t do anything dramatic between 2012 and 2013 to explain the rating improvement – but it did improve a significant number of bridges and roadways.

“A widening performance gap seems to be emerging between most states that are making progress and a few states that are finding it difficult to improve,” according to the report’s authors. “There is also increasing evidence that higher-level road systems (Interstates, other freeways and principal arterials) are in better shape than lower-level road systems, particularly local roads.”

The good news: California is among those states that are improving. The bad news: It has an extremely long way to go to reduce congestion and bring state and local roads up to snuff. On a controversial note, California’s recently released transportation plan seems to downplay the importance of expanding the state’s highway and road infrastructure.

The “California Transportation Plan 2040” focuses more on battling climate change than on expanding the state’s already clogged network of highways. “By 2040, California will have completed an integrated rail system linking every major region in the state, with seamless one-ticket transfers to local transit,” wrote Transportation Secretary Brian Kelly.

“Responding to the desires of millennials and aging baby boomers alike, we will further invest in complete, safe pedestrian and bicycle networks,” Kelly added. He also promised a new approach toward lowering maintenance costs on roads and bridges. But the state’s blueprint relies heavily on alternative transportation sources, rather than on freeways and road construction, given the “transportation system must do its part to reduce these threats (climate change) to our environment and health.”

Other reports paint a mostly gloomy picture of California’s transportation situation. Last year, the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Development Committee – during a special session designed to come up with additional funding for transportation programs – reported that “54 of California’s 58 counties have an average pavement rating of ‘poor’ or ‘at risk,’ with much of this deterioration occurring over the past six years.”

Reason found California to top the national charts on bridge condition, but the state Senate pointed to 3,000 “structurally deficient bridges.” The committee pointed to an expected doubling of freight moved on California’s freeways (from 2002 to 2035), to suggest that the state’s infrastructure will face an accelerated level of deterioration.

The session failed to come up with a long-term funding solution, but that will no doubt be a top item for the Legislature next year.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. He is based in Sacramento. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

Union battles Caltrans over costly move

Good morning! But alas, it’s only Tuesday.

CalPERS and the rising public debt continues to be scrutinized. But first, Caltrans is under fire from an employee union. 

A public employees’ union is questioning Caltrans’ pricey decision to move one of its district offices from one side of Orange County to the other, noting the high cost of new cubicle partitions and the lack of space to accommodate new staff required by two transportation proposals. 

Caltrans’ District 12 management terminated its lease two years early to move from a building it owns in Irvine to a space it’s renting in Santa Ana, to move from a space the union argues would accommodate space needs to a space that’s inadequate.

The new space saves about $1.2 million in rent annually, but it also reduces space by 50,000 sq. ft., which does not allow for the additional staff required for the traffic-relief construction called for in transportation proposals offered by both Gov. Jerry Brown and legislators.

“For state highways, this would require engineering design and construction inspection, but Caltrans is moving to a new location which would not have the space to house the staff needed to accomplish the program,” said Beth Katz, spokeswoman for Professional Engineers in California Government.

CalWatchdog has more.

In other news:

• “California’s foster-care system has long been plagued with unaddressed problems, but a recent exposé about the system’s alleged over-prescription of psychotropic drugs has propelled the Legislature into action. Gov. Jerry Brown currently has on his desk three bills that deal with some of the issues raised in a California state auditor’s report last month,” reports CalWatchdog.

• “Lawmakers agreed last month to extend a vital subsidy for [Bloom Energy], one that makes its pricey power generators more attractive to buyers such as hospitals, data centers and mega-retailers. For Bloom  and its industry cohorts, the win marked the end of a hard-fought slog against powerful adversaries including utilities and labor groups. But rival companies and some lawmakers had a different perspective… .” The Los Angeles Times has more. 

• “CalPERS pension fund defended by its most ferocious critic,” writes CalWatchdog.

• “Why the dot-com bubble is key to understanding California’s growing public employee pension debt,” reports Capital Public Radio.

Legislature:

• Gone ’til December.

Gov. Brown:

• No public events announced.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mfleming

New follower: @cebryant

Caltrans’ District 12 management terminated its lease two years early in Irvine for a new location in Santa Ana; to move from a space the union argues would accommodate space needs to a space that’s inadequate.

The new space saves about $1.2 million in rent annually, but it also reduces space by 50,000 sq. ft., which does not allow for the additional staff required for the traffic-relief construction called for in transportation proposals offered by both Gov. Jerry Brown and legislators.

“For state highways, this would require engineering design and construction inspection, but Caltrans is moving to a new location which would not have the space to house the staff needed to accomplish the program,” said Beth Katz, spokeswoman for Professional Engineers in California Government.

Pricey partitions

Caltrans will also install new, low-rise partitions for cubicles costing $1.7 million, over the objections of PECG and staffers. Spokesman David Richardson said the partitions are part of Caltrans’ “commitment to innovation and to sustainability issues such as maximizing natural light and increased ventilation to improve the mood and productivity of staff.”

Richardson said the low-rise partitions will improve communication also, and have worked in the offices of other companies in the old business park. However, PECG argues the partitions will kill productivity and morale, all for almost $2 million — especially when existing inventory has the partitions they prefer. 

“Shorter partitions result in more noise in the work area, are opposed by the employees, and cost extra money as compared to using the existing partitions,” Katz said.

Transportation proposals

The Legislature is currently in a special session on transportation, although legislators have left Sacramento until December. Although leaders could call legislators back to address the transportation issue before the November election, it’s not likely to happen.

Both Gov. Brown’s plan and the one proposed by the Legislature’s two committee chairs who oversee transportation call for increased taxes, which would require a two-thirds vote. Republicans have been publicly opposed to increased taxes to pay for roads, arguing that funds already exist in the budget, but there doesn’t appear to be sufficient support among Democrats either. 

Many Sacramento insiders privately predict that some members may be more inclined to increase taxes during the lame-duck session, particularly those who have termed out or been voted out.

There is also a decent chance that Democrats win a two-thirds majority in November, thereby removing Republicans’ ability to block increases in the next legislative session — although they would still need to get other Democrats on board.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said Caltrans owned its offices in Irvine. The space was actually a rental, hence the early termination of the lease. 

Like other counties’ battles with Caltrans over the same issue, Yolo County believes even government agencies need to obtain permits and conform to the state’s Water Code and subsequent regulations, which clearly express that state agencies are not exempt.

DWR, however, maintains it is exempt from the rules when engaging in “sovereign activities,” according to DWR spokeswoman Lauren Bisnett, who noted there are too many local regulations throughout the state for DWR to be expected to follow.

“We couldn’t follow local ordinances for every county,” Bisnett said. 

A Yolo County official confirmed on Friday that there were “active discussions” with DWR on the permitting issue and said the county is waiting for DWR to provide a legal opinion justifying its actions.

Sounds familiar

Avid CalWatchdog readers will remember a recent investigation uncovering a similar and widespread issue with Caltrans, where a fight with Sacramento County became ground zero in a statewide battle between counties and Caltrans. 

For around 25 years, Caltrans performed similar drilling — which essentially checks the structural soundness of the ground prior to building on top of it — under a similar belief it was exempt from state law.

In 2014, Caltrans brass decided to conform with the law going forward, spending millions of dollars to travel into the past to locate and seal thousands of holes. Caltrans estimates the effort could cost between $17 million and $37.2 million over the next five years, in addition to the $5.2 million that’s been spent already — with future budget requests dependent on whether counties will agree to let them off the hook for unfound holes.

Sacramento County issued a notice of violation to Caltrans late last year, threatening as much as $5.23 million per day until the borehole mitigation plan was complete. While the compliance date was January 4, an extension was granted. Since then, the matter has not been resolved and Sacramento County has been unable to provide an update. 

Bisnett told CalWatchdog that DWR had no opinion on Caltrans’ change of heart and its expensive efforts to retroactively comply with that law, and pointed to a difference of opinion between the two agencies.

The law

In 1986, the Legislature amended the California Water Code to include in its definition of regulated wells many of those drilled by DWR and Caltrans.

The measure and subsequent regulations did several things, including listing the state as an entity regulated by the law and empowering local agencies to meet or exceed state standards for drilling in their individual jurisdictions — Yolo County’s standards require permits.

Two years ago, Caltrans admitted it defied state and local laws protecting against groundwater contamination for nearly a quarter century and has been scrambling since to “resolve” approximately 20,000 boreholes statewide. While most holes need to be found, some are covered, others need to be sealed, while others are being resolved through an agreement with the local agency, like counties.

Caltrans estimates the “borehole mitigation” effort could cost between $17 million and $37.2 million over the next five years, in addition to the $5.2 million that’s been spent already.

The plan also predicts the program could be completed by as early as 2019. But staff is only finding a small percentage of the holes at the moment, no more than 15 percent of active and planned jobs. The find rate would likely decrease as Caltrans begins searching for older holes.

Staff cannot or will not explain in detail how it arrived at it’s optimistic figures.

“It’s an estimate,” said spokesman Mark Dinger.

Caltrans reportedly told the Legislature that to arrive at the numbers, staff “looked at the data and trends from our recent efforts” to estimate the next fiscal year, adding that the “infancy (and lack of history)” of the plan makes estimates beyond the upcoming fiscal year “very speculative.”

With such a low find rate, little history and no data to base its findings on, how is Caltrans predicting the effort could be completed in the next few years?

“Again, it’s an estimate,” said Dinger. 

Caltrans has repeatedly said not all holes will need to be redrilled and sealed, as many are covered by roads and others were not drilled through the water table, but staff has not provided an estimate of how many holes need to be found. 

Caltrans previously told CalWatchdog it costs between $25,000 and $60,000 to “resolve” one borehole. At a 15 percent find rate — a very generous estimate — the cost would be between $75 million and $180 million. 

Dinger said Caltrans has been working with local agencies to reach resolutions “that do not require re-drilling and resealing past boreholes,” but did not provide an estimate of how many that would be.

History

To date, Caltrans reports it has spent at least $5.2 million to “resolve” between 7 percent and 15 percent, depending on the phase of the three-phase plan. Since 1990, Caltrans lost 523 holes in Sacramento County (Phase 1) and at least 5,737 holes statewide for “active and planned projects” (Phase 2).

Phase 3 will be the remaining 14,000 or so holes from completed projects between 1990 and 2014. That total number is just an estimate.

Sacramento County, which helped bring the issue to light, is threatening to fine Caltrans as much as $5.23 million per day for not obtaining permits, licenses and inspections — against state and local law — for the hundreds of wells drilled from January 1990 to May 2014. However, the compliance date has passed without Sacramento County announcing its next move.

The state’s Water Code, and subsequent state and local laws, regulates drilling practices in or near groundwater to protect against contamination. Local agencies chased Caltrans employees around for years trying to get them to comply.

In June 2014, Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty sent a memo to Brian Kelly, the secretary of the California State Transportation Agency, stating that Caltrans now agreed with Sacramento County and other local agencies about following local procedures.

Dougherty admitted to Kelly that the lack of documentation, combined with an “ill-defined business process means Caltrans cannot represent that we have adequately protected groundwater during our drilling operations as required” by state law.

A stockpile of dead animals, as well as other contaminates like dirt and asphalt, was found in a drainage ditch — considered a waterway — by a North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board inspector in Mendocino County. 

As barbaric as it seems at first glance, Caltrans has the unenviable task of removing roadkill from the roadways, which means the remains must be disposed of somewhere, to which there are procedures.  

In 2008, state lawmakers created stricter regulations for how Caltrans would dispose of animal carcasses after it was discovered that Caltrans was dumping the dead animals in a way that allowed some of the carcasses to roll into Saratoga Creek in Saratoga. Mass graves were found in Sausalito as well.

In addition to amending the Highway Code requiring that animal carcasses be disposed of at least 150 feet from waterways, the 2008 law required Caltrans to come up with procedures on how it would dispose of the carcasses. 

Caltrans policy was to have its area superintendents establish their own procedures for handling roadkill. Caltrans has until May 27 to provide evidence of the procedures to the waterboard.

Caltrans spokesman Matt Rocco told CalWatchdog that the department was “working with our District offices to coordinate an official response to this order.”

Caltrans has so far been unable to provide evidence of the local procedures to CalWatchdog. We’ll update this story as needed. 

The animals were dumped within 150 feet of the waterway, regardless of Caltrans’ policies. But the waterboard does not enforce the Highway Code, so another agency would have had to seek action on that allegation. 

The waterboard is concerned with the disposal policies, particularly because of the impact decaying animals can have on the water supply. 

“Decaying animal carcasses and/or parts may cause or contribute to exceedances of applicable water quality objectives in the waters of the state (e.g., pathogens, nutrients, dissolved oxygen), especially when placed in a concentrated manner,” according to the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board.

This is not the first time Caltrans has shown disregard for laws protecting against groundwater contamination. A few months ago, CalWatchdog reported that for almost a quarter of a century, Caltrans flaunted state and local laws regulating drilling practices an estimated 10,000 times (though the number has since jumped to 20,000). 

The Waterboard is asking for the procedures of multiple Caltrans regions and districts. Failure to comply could result in fines of up to $5,000 per day by the regional water board and up to $25,000 per day by a court, according to the notice. 

• Is the state headed for budget trouble?
• Caltrans unclear on spending needs
• Some water restrictions made permanent
• Bathrooms for all
• UC’s admissions process under fire

Good morning!

With Gov. Jerry Brown’s revised budget expected to be released sometime this week, it’s important to note that while the state’s finances have improved substantially during his most recent terms, many see a crisis ahead.

Multiple credit agencies, observers, lawmakers and even the popular governor have pointed to the fact that the state is too dependent on a small group of the wealthiest individuals to fund state activities — a problem because their income is largely tied to the volatility of the stock market, which, in an economic downturn, could dramatically reduce revenue.

Around 150,000 tax returns (according to the the Franchise Tax Board), provide 33 percent of the state’s total revenue. 

But while there’s consensus that something needs to happen, there’s little consensus as to what that something is.

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news: 

• The budget may have some answers as to how much Caltrans “borehole mitigation” plan will cost. It is currently asking for around $6.6 million for just next fiscal year, as part of a five-year plan. The plan is to go around the state and “resolve” around 20,000 boreholes drilled improperly (while defying state and local laws) between 1990 and 2014. So far, Caltrans has refused to provide specifics on how much this plan will cost. CalWatchdog has more. 
• A bill requiring gender-neutral restrooms on all public and state property was approved by the Assembly on Monday, while another barred state employees from being required to “travel to states that are deemed to be discriminating based on gender identity or sexual orientation,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
• “Some of the temporary water-saving measures imposed on homeowners and water agencies — including how you wash your car at home and how you water your lawn — are now permanent under an executive order issued Monday by Gov. Jerry Brown,” The Orange County Register reports. 

Assembly:

• A subcommittee will take a look at the UC enrollment trends, following a scathing report suggesting the enrollment process favors out-of-state students. The Los Angeles Times has more. 

Senate:

• Full slate of hearings. 

Gov. Brown:

• No public events scheduled. 

Politics:

• Debate in the U.S. Senate race is tonight. 

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New followers: @SocialInSB @von4senate

CalWatchdog has repeatedly tried to get Caltrans to provide an estimate of its three-phase “borehole mitigation” plan — from both a spokesman as well as through a public records request — but no such luck yet, even though the data should be made immediately available under the state’s sunshine law. 

CalWatchdog found one funding request online showing at least what Caltrans is requesting for the next fiscal year, around $6.6 million, which is nearly triple the amount Caltrans estimated in January. The funding request references a “five-year estimated plan,” but Caltrans has not provided that either.

One spokesman said an estimate would be available in Gov. Jerry Brown’s revised budget, which is scheduled to be released this week. 

Number of holes doubled

Caltrans told CalWatchdog earlier this year it lost around 10,000 holes statewide since 1990. The new funding request estimates the number around 20,000 holes. 

Caltrans said many holes won’t need to be sealed as part of negotiations with local agencies (mostly counties) and many more may be covered up by existing structures (roads). Caltrans won’t provide an estimate on what the target percentage is.

Caltrans estimates the cost to “resolve” one of these four-inch to six-inch holes that go as far as hundreds of feet into the ground is between $25,000 to $60,000 per hole. This figure includes the cost of implementing the new drilling policy, which now adheres to the law.

To date, Caltrans estimates it has spent around $3.6 million to “resolve” only a fraction of the holes — between 7 percent and 15 percent. Since 1990, Caltrans lost 523 holes in Sacramento County (Phase 1) and at least 5,737 holes statewide for “active and planned projects” (Phase 2).

Phase 3 will be the remaining 14,000 or so holes from completed projects between 1990 and 2014. 

Meanwhile, Sacramento County, which helped bring the issue to light, is threatening to fine Caltrans as much as $5.23 million per day for not obtaining permits, licenses and inspections — against state and local law — for 523 wells drilled from January 1990 to May 2014. However, the compliance date has passed without Sacramento County announcing its next step.

The state’s Water Code, and subsequent state and local laws, regulates drilling practices in or near groundwater to protect against contamination. Local agencies chased Caltrans employees around for years trying to get them to comply.

In June 2014, Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty sent a memo to Brian Kelly, the secretary of the California State Transportation Agency, stating that Caltrans now agreed with Sacramento County and other local agencies about following local procedures.

Dougherty admitted to Kelly that the lack of documentation, combined with an “ill-defined business process means Caltrans cannot represent that we have adequately protected groundwater during our drilling operations as required” by state law.