By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY

Staff Writer

The Crest Forest Municipal Advisory Council meeting held at the San Moritz Lodge on Tuesday, Sept. 5 heard from two guest speakers, both filled with life impacting information.

Southern California Edison (SCE) sent several spokesmen to explain the upcoming 16-hour, planned electrical outages to occur on both Saturday, Oct. 7 and 14. Those power outages should affect 4,000 residences in Crestline, which is the majority of the community.

SCE spokeswoman Melissa Boyd fields questions from the audience at the Crest Forest MAC meeting. (Photos by Rhea-Frances Tetley)

Melissa Boyd from SCE explained that most of the community has some service affected by the main power grid and multiple circuits that come from the Huston electrical substation, aka Manzanita substation. This will be a complex repair and they will have multiple repairs occurring simultaneously, so many roads may be blocked by work trucks.  All cars will need to be removed from Manzanita Road those days as the number of work trucks and crews will need the space to work and park and that road will be completely closed. The outage will begin at 8 p.m. on Saturday evening and continue all night, until noon on Sunday.

Edison has been doing upgrades since 2020, hardening the poles, covering conductors and replacing wires to protect them from weather such as lightning, wind, snow, rain and heat. Fewer outages due to weather have been the result, the spokesman said.

Gregory Irigoyen announced a community meeting was scheduled for Sept. 12 at 6:30 p.m. at the San Moritz Lodge where they planned to hand out maps of outage areas and share other important pieces of information about these planned, significant outages that will affect most aspects of the community. But planning by the public is also important, such as not buying lots of frozen food items or food that needs refrigeration on those Saturday afternoons, unless other refrigeration methods are available for those food items. Those with medical needs that require electricity should notify Edison now, as they have alternate plans for those with identified medical needs, if notified with sufficient time.

SoCal Edison will be mailing out “Dear Neighbor” letters to all mailboxes in the area to notify everyone about the upcoming community meeting and the outage. They do not want anyone to be surprised by this planned outage.

Next, Mountain Disposal spoke on the new state law, SB 1383, which mandates that the methane gas that is created by green waste when buried in a landfill be mitigated. It is the decomposition of that green waste materials (leaves, grass, weeds, branches, pine needles, plant clippings, etc.) when buried that creates the methane gas, so Burrtec may no longer collect green waste in the regular trash collection, beginning on Oct. 1. They have added an extra green waste container to their weekend Clean Mountain drop-off zones at no additional charge to residents. Burrtec must take the green waste they collect to the new facility they have developed in Fontana and separate it, grind it and mix it with food scraps to create a mulch. The mulch is supposed to be available for the public to use and those who want may go and get it, when it is ready.

The green waste will also be accepted at the Heaps Peak transfer station. When a resident pointed out that some people do not have a truck or the ability to take the green waste to the Clean Mountain drop-off locations or Heaps Peak, Burrtec Vice President Michael Arreguin described a pilot program they are putting into place.

On the last Saturday of the month, they will send out a truck to pick up green waste from curbsides for those who order the special pickup for $27.56. The special collection will pick up six large (32-gallon) trash bags of green waste or six bundles of two feet by four feet of branches or a combination of six bundles and bags. Each extra bag or bundle above the six will cost $1.85 each. If they had to send out weekly green waste trucks, the monthly service would have gone up drastically for everyone, Arreguin said.

Mike Harris, representing Mountain Transit, said the trolley ride-free routes have been succesful this first summer. They are continuing the free weekend trolley service until October. Routes 2 and 4 will continue to be free this winter.

Bill Mellinger of the Lake Gregory Community Advisory Committee (LGCAC) and Nathan Godwin of the Lake Gregory Company spoke on the debris that was washed into the lake by the tropical storm. Much of it was cleared by Lake Gregory personnel. However, the lake needs dredging and the permit paperwork is being or has been submitted to the multiple agencies and it has already been funded by the county.

The LGCAC was contacted about the parking caused by heavy visitor attendance to the lake. Godwin said they do tow illegally parked cars in fire lanes and ticket those other illegally parked cars on park property for safety reasons. The CHP tickets those illegally parked in the street.

They explained the funding for the new children’s playground to be built near the meadow and dog park, and how they are eligible for more grants when community donations are being received, as that indicates community support for the project. So far, they have raised $15,000 toward the playground. See their website, Lakegregory.com, for all the details and pictures.

They reported on the regional park’s financials since the Lake Gregory Company became the manager of the park. The two log beams on the San Moritz Lodge that must be replaced will  be expensive, but they are sourcing local trees for the project. The lake was at one time 4-1/2 feet above flood stage, making the beach much smaller this summer, limiting the number of visitors they could accept.

Mellinger explained that the expenditures on the Duffy and other boats and the general upgrades that have made the park community friendly were paid for from the initial funds the company received to start the park when they got the contract. Lake Gregory Regional Park has more free community-accessible amenities than any other regional park in San Bernardino County, including hiking trails, the skateboard park, playgrounds, tennis and basketball courts and two dog parks.

The next Crest Forest MAC will be on Oct. 3 at 6:30 p.m. at the San Moritz Lodge.