Back in 2016, in the midst of a severe drought and water rationing in Montecito, Floyd Wicks, a former CEO of one of the largest investor-owned water companies in the United States, successfully ran for the Montecito Water District, vowing to start recycling the community’s wastewater.
Wicks was on a winning slate of two, backed by a surprising $80,000 from wealthy donors — a lot of money for a small special district race.
The candidates’ campaign mailer featured a photo of a spacecraft with the words, “What does the International Space Station have that the Montecito Water District does not? The answer is recycled water.”
Wicks has been on the water board for 10 years, but there is still no wastewater recycling for irrigation in this wealthy enclave of one-acre lots, large estates and luxury golf courses. In 2024, after studying a host of alternatives, the board put “any further pursuit of recycled water” on indefinite hold because of the high expense.
Wicks now favors shutting down the Montecito Sanitary District’s aging wastewater treatment plant and shipping the sewage to Santa Barbara. With two more years still to go in his term on the water board, he’s running for one of three seats on the five-member Sanitary District board on Nov. 3. If he wins, he would leave a vacant water board seat.
Two other candidates have joined Wicks on a slate for the Sanitary District board. They are Woody Barrett, the owner of a Houston-based oil company and an eight-year board incumbent; and Chris Francis, a financial consultant.
Wicks notes that state policy calls for reducing the number of ocean “outfalls” where two dozen public wastewater agencies, including Montecito and Santa Barbara, are shipping treated wastewater offshore through pipelines on the sea floor. Montecito’s outfall is about 1,500 feet off Butterfly Beach in water 35 feet deep.
“We have a once-in-a lifetime chance to get rid of an environmental mess,” Wicks said.
It’s just the latest round in a 10-year struggle for control over Montecito’s water supply. In the 2016, 2018 and 2020 elections, campaign filings show, a group of Montecito moguls, including members of the Birnam Wood and Valley Club golf courses, spent more than $250,000 fielding candidates for the water and Sanitary District boards.
As of 2018, these candidates, backed by the “Committee for Montecito Water Security,” controlled all five seats on the water board. As of 2020, they controlled a majority on the Sanitary District board.
Over the years, the boards sought to create one consolidated district out of the two agencies, run by the water district. That dream died this spring with the resignation of Dana Newquist, a Water Security board member at the Sanitary District.
‘We gather facts‘
Water and sanitary board elections have profound consequences for the availability and cost of water in a small community where residential water use, at 198 gallons per capita per day, is among the highest in the state.
Running against Wicks and Francis on Nov. 3 for a four-year term at the Sanitary District is board President Rock Rockenbach, a former officer and Judge Advocate in the U.S. Air Force. He was appointed to the board in mid-2025.
John Murphy, a finance executive who helps secure loans for large commercial infrastructure and development projects, is running against Barrett for a two-year term on the board. He was appointed just last May.
“I’ve been apolitical for my entire life,” Murphy said. “It was a chance that maybe I could serve my community and my background could help.”
Rockenbach and Murphy note that last fall, the board commissioned a $1.7 million study on whether to replace the plant, which was built in the early 1960s, or shut it down and ship Montecito’s wastewater to Santa Barbara for treatment. The rebuild, if the board chooses that option, would be designed to recycle water if the water district wants to distribute it.
In September, the Sanitary District board voted unanimously to ask Santa Barbara for more information on how much Montecito wastewater the city could accept.
“From what I’ve seen in the last eight years, recycling has been approached in fits and starts,” Murphy said. “There’s a solution here, and it has not been fully explored.”
Rockenbach and Murphy say it would be premature to choose a treatment option before the study is finished.
“We gather facts and see where that leads us, rather than starting with a predetermined outcome,” Rockenbach said. “We don’t have an agenda. We don’t have an overall objective, except to do what’s right for the ratepayer.”
Based on his own research, Rockenbach estimates that the cost of rebuilding the plant or shipping the sewage to Santa Barbara may be the same — about $50 million.
“Each option carries real advantages and real risks,” Rockenbach said.
Either way, Murphy said Montecito’s wastewater should be thought of as a “ratepayer asset of the district.”
“Demand for water is not decreasing, it is increasing,” he said. “Any water that is associated with MSD is valuable. That has to be considered in any future board decision.”
In July, Bob Hazard, a resident of Birnam Wood and a columnist for the Montecito Journal who spearheaded the Water Security campaigns, beginning in 2016, filed a public records request at the Sanitary District, asking for a copy of all district communications with Southland Industries, the nationwide engineering firm chosen by the board to study future wastewater treatment options.
Hazard also asked what contacts Rockenbach; Carter Ohlmann, a board member and UCSB research oceanographer; and John Weigold, the general manager, had had with Murphy before he was sworn in.
Weigold said it took staffers and attorneys several weeks to gather 1,500 documents for Hazard.
In September, Hazard met at Birnam Wood with Wicks, Barrett, Francis and Karina Johnston, executive director of Heal the Ocean, to ask for the environmentalist group’s support. Johnston said she told them that “reducing ocean pollution is our goal” but “we don’t endorse specific candidates.”
‘The mailer‘
A flyer announcing the slate candidates for the Montecito Sanitary District is expected to arrive in ratepayers’ mailboxes this week echoing some of the same arguments from past Water Security mailers, though the words “water security” do not appear this time.
The mailer attacks an unnamed “opposition” for failing to recycle wastewater and continuing to “dump” treated wastewater into the ocean. At one point, it states that treated wastewater is being discharged “onto” Butterfly Beach.
“The opposition plan will … fail to protect the Montecito environment; risk the health and safety of our community; and refuse to treat wastewater at the lowest cost,” the mailer states.
“It gets some really important facts dead wrong,” Rockenbach said. The district’s discharge of treated wastewater meets all state water quality standards, he said, and so does the water at Butterfly Beach. The discharge does not empty onto the beach, he said.
Moreover, Rockenbach said, a map in the mailer is misleadingly labeled as showing wastewater discharge off Butterfly Beach. In fact, he said, it is a map showing ocean circulation patterns, not water quality. Ohlmann, a board member, produced the map for a state study in 2010.
As for not recycling wastewater, Rockenbach said, that decision has been up to the water board, not the Sanitary District board. Wicks and Barrett have been on these boards, respectively, since 2016 and 2018, so why haven’t they moved on recycling in the intervening years? he asked.
Rockenbach and Murphy also wonder what “opposition plan” the mailer is referring to. The mailer states that the plan includes signing “a no-bid contract to design and rebuild a new MSD treatment plant.”
Francis did not respond last week to a reporter’s request for an interview. But according to the mailer, he “does not believe a district of roughly 3,100 households should sign the largest commitment in its history without competitive bids.”
Again, Rockenbach and Murphy said, the Sanitary District board has not yet determined whether it makes more sense to rebuild the treatment plant or ship Montecito’s wastewater to Santa Barbara. The only agreement the board has signed is the $1.7 million study that is ongoing, they said, and there were two bids for that project.
“No construction contract exists, and no commitment to rebuild has been made,” Rockenbach said.
Barrett said he voted for the $1.7 million study on the recommendation of district staff, but, he explained, “I’m criticizing it now.”
Murphy said: “The opposition plan as presented doesn’t exist. It’s a myth. It’s not constructive for real dialogue about the challenges and opportunities that the district faces.”
In the mailer, the slate also takes aim at a recent 14 percent rate hike at the district, noting, correctly, that Montecito Sanitary has the highest wastewater treatment rates on the South Coast.
But, Rockenbach and Murphy said, the mailer incorrectly states that the board approved “a mandatory compounded rate increase of 14% per year over the next 5 years.” In fact, they said, the increase is mandatory for the 2026-27 fiscal year but may be lower than 14 percent in the future: the board will review the rate each year.
The rate increase this June was the first at the district since 2019. The rates are higher in Montecito than in Santa Barbara not because treatment costs are higher in Montecito, but because there are fewer customers per mile of pipe to pay for it, Rockenbach said.
The aging plant
For the immediate future, Rockenbach and Murphy say the district’s top priority is to make repairs on its wastewater treatment plant as soon as possible. Longer-term plans, whatever the board chooses, could take years to complete, they said.
As far back as 2004, a study for the district pointed out treatment deficiencies and recommended planning for plant modernization.Recent engineering studies for the district show that the aeration basins that hold wastewater are cracked and deteriorating, the result of water reacting with chemicals in the concrete. The electrical system is not grounded. Some replacement parts for the plant can be found only on eBay.
A further study has identified the need for bracing and anchoring district buildings for seismic strengthening.
“We are going to have to spend a bunch of money to stabilize the plant they want to get rid of,” Rockenbach said, referring to the slate candidates. “We’ve run out of time.”
Rockenbach and Murphy said the Water Security board members on the district, including Barrett, had been so focused on a merger with the water board that they failed to repair the wastewater plant in a timely fashion.
“These folks have messed around for so long, talking about consolidation, we now have a third of our plant that has passed its useful life,” Rockenbach said.
But Wicks and Barrett don’t believe the plant needs extensive repairs. They point to a 2023 study, paid for jointly by the water and Sanitary district boards, that found only $3 million would be needed to maintain and operate the plant for the next 10 years.
The facility, Barrett said, is “well-maintained and in good shape.” As a board member, he said, he has never turned down a single capital improvement project requested by district staff.
“It’s not my job to go out there and turn wrenches,” Barrett said.
Under the city option, the treated sewage would be shipped during the wet months of winter through an underwater pipe into the ocean. The city’s outfall is 1.6 miles offshore of East Beach and discharges in water 75 feet deep.
During the dry months, the city would recycle a portion of Montecito’s wastewater for non-potable use on landscaping in Santa Barbara.
For its part, the Sanitary District would have to build a pump station and lay pipes to convey the wastewater to a location near the Santa Barbara Zoo. The district also would construct two large holding tanks and accompanying odor-control systems. The tanks would store the wastewater so that it could be pumped to Santa Barbara at night, when the city’s own wastewater flow is lower.
“Our community will be in the recycling business the day our first drop hits the city,” Barrett said. “We will finally have the chance. We can’t do it by ourselves.”
Years of turmoil
This November, three water board members — Ken Coates, Cori Hayman and board President Brian Goebel — are running for re-election. Because they are unopposed, their names do not appear on the ballot. In 2020, their board ordered a 50-year, $33 million supply of water from Santa Barbara to help “drought-proof” Montecito.
In contrast, the Sanitary District has had a rocky eight years since the Water Security candidates came aboard.
During the 2018 campaign, lawyers for the Water Security slate threatened to sue Diane Gabriel, the then-general manager, for running an informational ad. In addition, an anonymous conflict-of-interest complaint was filed with the state Fair Political Practices Commission against Robert Williams, a board incumbent and water recycling professional who was running for election. The state rejected the claim, but Williams lost.
In the run-up to the 2020 election, when the Water Security candidates secured a majority on the board, Gabriel quit after 19 years as general manager. By 2022, 11 more staff members had left, including the interim general manager, two legal counsels, two district administrators, the engineering manager, chief plant operator, treatment plant operator and two maintenance workers. (Three of them were retirees.)
Weigold, a water resources manager with experience in California and internationally, is the district’s fourth general manager after Gabriel. Since 2020, four board members have resigned.
New majority
At a meeting this April, just hours after Newquist resigned, the Sanitary District board voted 2-2 on a Memorandum of Understanding drafted by the water board that would have merged the two agencies and made the water board “the governing body of the unified entity.” The tie vote meant that the measure failed.
Barrett voted in favor, but Rockenbach voted against, along with Ohlmann. With Murphy’s appointment a month later, the board was no longer controlled by Water Security candidates.
As of Tuesday, campaign filings show, the slate for the Sanitary District board had received a $9,999 donation from Barrett. Rockenbach has put together a website (https://rock4msd.com/), but he and Murphy say they don’t plan to spend a cent on their campaigns.
“I don’t think the Sanitary District should be bought,” Rockenbach said.
Over the years, the amount of money behind Water Security candidates has inevitably led to speculation in Montecito that their ultimate goal is the privatization of the community’s water and wastewater supplies.
Wicks is a former CEO of the American States Water Co., a water and electricity company that is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Today, one of its subsidiaries, the Golden State Water Co., serves 80 communities and 265,000 customers in California. During his tenure, Wicks oversaw the formation of the American States Utility Services Inc., a subsidiary that operates water and wastewater systems at U.S. military bases nationwide.
But he laughs at the notion he’d be interested in privatizing Montecito’s water supply.
“There’s no intent at all on my part to privatize anything,” Wicks said. “I’m busy enough on my consulting work. It’s been a good experience for me to understand the public side of water agencies.”
Melinda Burns is an investigative reporter with more than 40 years of experience covering immigration, water, science and the environment. She was a senior writer at the News-Press during a 21-year career at the paper, ending in 2006.
