Synopsis: After six years of working on plans for their new multi-million dollar wastewater treatment plant, Morro Bay and Cayucos apparently will have to start all over. The California Coastal Commission staff has issued a report rejecting the design of the project, its location, its lack of capabilities, and the absence of possible alternatives to the proposed new plant—which is proposed to be sited in a 100-year flood plain and also would not produce the volume of purified processed water that the city may need badly in the near future.
The widely-criticized proposed plan for constructing a new, multimillion dollar Morro Bay-Cayucos wastewater treatment plant—with yet-to-be- calculated sewer rates that could reach the hundreds of dollars a month range per household—has been dealt what appears to be a death knell by the California Coastal Commission staff. It has called for a completely new design of the plant and has ruled out the current plan to locate the project on the shore of Estero Bay next to the existing old, outmoded facility.
The Commission, which has direct jurisdiction over such projects in the coastal zone, has required a completely-revised draft environmental impact report (DEIR) to include possible alternative sites for the new plant and with much greater operational capabilities. An important possibility would enable a new plant to produce huge amounts of processed purified water for use in reviving city ground wells that "would help the city meet its water supply needs and ensure water . . . is available. . . if/when state water is restricted or unavailable."
The report requests "that the DEIR be appropriately revised, updated and recirculated for comment," and it should evaluate "feasible alternatives for site locations that can avoid significant hazards and important coastal resource impacts." It also should review "alternative designs that incorporate the technology and infrastructure necessary to accommodate both wastewater flows at buildout as well as reuse of reclaimed water."
The start-all-over mandate seems likely to open the door for PERC Water to re-enter the picture as a possible designer-builder-operator of a new plant. The company has proposed a new plant that would be the most technologically-advanced, could produce the highest-quality recycled water in largest volume and would cost about $10 million less than the plant proposed by MWH, the current design contractor. PERC Water has estimated its cost at about $20 million, and MWH's estimate is $31 million to build a new plant. But PERC Water says its price is fixed while MWH's isn't.
However, PERC Water withdrew from consideration in October.
The 12-page report by the Commission staff has not been made public yet, but a copy submitted to the city of Morro Bay and the Cayucos Sanitary District was obtained by the Slo Coast Journal. Morro Bay and the Cayucos district jointly own and operate the wastewater treatment plant as the Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) board.
For more than a year, residents have been urging the JPA board to do precisely what the Coastal Commission staff called for: get rid of the present outmoded plant design, which MWH has developed and which the Commission staff report ripped apart in its comments on the EIR.
The decision on dealing with what the Commission staff described as a defective EIR, the rejected plant design, the contractors already hired to develop existing plans, and six years and possibly about $3 million of likely wasted money on the current plans for a new plant will confront the new majority on the Morro Bay City Council when they are sworn in on December 13. They are mayor Bill Yates and Council members Nancy Johnson and George Leage, who were elected on November 2, unofficial results showed.
Yates and Leage have been openly critical of deviating from the present MWH sewer plant plans and design that were castigated by the Coastal Commission staff. They have also been dismissive of PERC Water as an alternative plant designer and builder.
The Coastal Commission staff report, dated November 12, began by stating that "there are several fundamental problems with the project as it is currently proposed that will require substantial modification before it can be found LCP (Local Coastal Plan) and Coastal Act consistent."
Without consistency with those two major regulatory documents, virtually no project has a chance of being approved by the Coastal Commission, which is necessary for the plant to be built.
One of the fundamental areas of inconsistency, the report said, is that the JPA's "proposed preferred site location appears to be inappropriate for the development. . . The concept of locating a major public works infrastructure in an area that is subject to multiple significant hazards is not consistent with the hazards policies of the LCP. Further, the location is directly adjacent to the shoreline in a visually sensitive area where such a development could frustrate LCP and Coastal Act public recreational access and visitor-serving objectives and lead to adverse public viewshed impacts."
The preferred site is in "a high hazard area," the report said,"because it is located within the 100-year flood plain of Morro Creek, in a tsunami-inundation area, approximately 800 feet from the current shoreline, and in an area that is susceptible to liquefaction due to underlying soil types."
The report noted that the city's LCP "describes the risk of flooding within the City and prohibits development in the 100-year flood plain" and "identifies the location of the WWTYP in the flood plain as one of the city's flooding problems."
Therefore, the "DEIR must provide information about alternative sites that are are not within the 100-year flood plain," it said.
At that site, it also would conflict with "public recreational access and visitor-serving uses, and important public viewsheds.
In addition, that site "is located on a Native American burial ground, which, as required by the LCP, must be avoided where feasible." It is in "close proximity to numerous documented archeological sites and is located within a burial ground of the Salinan Tribe," and "ground development and excavation at this location appears to be inconsistent with the LCP."
The JPA plan's proposal to reduce the capacity of the new WWTP (wastewater treatment plant) "is not consistent with the LCP policies requiring infrastructure to accommodate future growth that is planned for in the LCP," which allows for a buildout population of 12,195 in Morro Bay.
Also, "the plant should be adequately sized to handle current and future volumes of effluent originating from Morro Bay and Cayucos while protecting against intentional or accidental diversions of untreated effluent during peak and/or wet weather flows." But, "as proposed, the WWTP would not be capable of accommodating the wastewater flows that are antiicpated. . . "
The proposed plant also "does not include a plan for water reclamation that meets the expectations of the City of Morro Bay LCP, the San Luis County LCP (covering Cayucos) or recent actions of the Commission, including its recent approval of the Los Osos Waste Water Project." Under the JPA proposed project, it would "produce a large quantity of highly treated wastewater, and the vast majority of it would be disposed of through the ocean outfall into Estero Bay." This is because the water would not be treated to purified quality, and, therefore, could not be used for a wide range of purposes.
Not treating the water to the best possible quality "would not only cause unnecessary impacts on the marine environment, but it would also prevent the City and adjacent areas of the County from utilizing this freshwater source to help . . . meet the region's water supply needs."
In terms of "alternative siting and design options," the report said, "it does not appear that the DEIR provides the information necessary in this context to analyze the proposed project for consistency" with the LCP and Coastal Act. It ordered that the DEIR be revised "to address this critical deficiency."
Although the DEIR "refers to this project as an upgrade to the WWTP, it is in fact a complete replacement of the facility," and the DEIR should have considered it as such.
Water reclamation should be one of the prime objectives of a new plant, and "the LCP clearly requires the City to pursue water reclamation as part of this WWTP project." But the JPA plant design provides for only "a small amount of wastewater reclamation." Reclaimed water of superior quality could be used for agricultural irrigation inside and/or outside of the district's service area, replenishment of ground water to restore the capacity of city wells and "could obviate the need for an ocean outfall" to protect the marine environment. Therefore, the benefits of reclaimed water "must be a part of the DEIR alternatives analysis." And the DEIR "must provide details about the quantity of water that would be reclaimed, the timeline for when reclaimed water would be available and the constraints associated with transporting the water. . . "
Such alternatives should address the "potential to reclaim 100% of the wastewater produced," which may require "associated pipeline infrastructure," and the DEIR "needs to identify any feasibility issues associated with such a program."
It also "must provide a detailed explanation of how storm water would be collected, filtered and treated."
