Synopsis: The Morro Bay-Cayucos wastewater treatment plant saga has been marked by one thing: the unexplained and bewildering delays in getting the project built over the past several years and more. But now the real reason has been revealed: Cayucos has been refusing to pay some of the costs, Morro Bay's city attorney says.
Many who have followed the long-delayed plans to build a new Morro Bay-Cayucos wastewater treatment plant have been puzzled over the development of a multi-million dollar project that has dragged on for so long, pushed up costs, and ultimately seemed dead on arrival at the California Coastal Commission, which has the power to determine the kind of project that must be built. And, as was widely expected, the Commission did reject the project on March 11 in a few minutes with no debate.
It has all seemed so baffling and impossible to understand, especially since the Commission staff has sent Morro Bay and Cayucos two letters dating back to 2008 explaining exactly what kind of project would be acceptable and what kind of information was required to back it up.
Bewildering—until now.
City Attorney Rob Schultz has revealed what he says caused all the delays, going back several years or more: it was Cayucos refusing to pay its share of the costs for a critical study of alternative sites for the new plant—the lack of which was instrumental in the Commission turning down the proposed project.
He says by submitting an incomplete project—without that study—Morro Bay got the Coastal Commission to explicitly require the study, which it has and which now means that Cayucos will have to pay its share of about $350,000 for a consultant to conduct the study. Dudek, an environmental and engineering firm, was hired on June 1 to conduct that study and much more.
The Morro Bay City Council and the Cayucos Sanitary District Governing Board (MB/CSD) are partners under a Joint Powers Agreement (JPA), which covers both operating the present plant and building a new one. A top Cayucos district staff member once said, "There is bad blood between the two."
"Is anybody in the room from Cayucos?" Schultz asked jokingly at the Morro Bay Business and Community Forum on June 30, according to several who were at the meeting. Then he disclosed the hidden goings on that has had so many wondering why the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) has taken so long to get started and built.
Schultz told the Journal that Cayucos balked at paying its share of studies of alternative sites for the new plant because it didn't want to pay for the cost and that was because it was satisfied with the plant being proposed next to the existing plant on Atascadero Road fronting on Estero Bay.
Cayucos apparently thought that would be the cheapest, although ultimately unacceptable. That location was submitted to the Coastal Commission and rejected after Commission staff found that it could not be located in that area because of potential flooding and tsunamis, which the city's own Local Coastal Plan prohibits, among other reasons.
The city apparently went along and submitted that site for the new plant.
The Cayucos board or staff never put their refusal to pay its share in writing, but it was made clear in other ways, he said.
Schultz said a similar situation occurred in 1999 when an alternatives study was needed and Cayucos refused to pay its share. "We did it on our own," he said. And there have been other times when Cayucos wouldn't pay it share, Schultz said.
"We hear all the time that we (Morro Bay and Cayucos) should have done the project a year ago," Schultz said. "But we will get there."
Under the JPA, if the city required the alternatives study for the project, "we would have had to pay for it ourselves."
The Coastal Commission staff has strongly urged MB/CSD in the last letter to them in November, 2010, to build a plant with the capability of producing disinfected water from all of the effluent it takes in for replenishing depleted city wells and for agricultural needs. But whether Cayucos will pay its share of the cost of designing a plant with that capacity is unknown, if the Commission doesn't explicitly require it, Schultz said. That is because Cayucos has its own private supplies of water and thinks it doesn't need any recycled water. Board chair Robert Enns has said so at JPA meetings.
That may be a decision of the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, which could have the authority over the grade of water that the plant must provide, Schultz.
"We might have to pay to recycle all by ourselves," Schultz said, referring to Morro Bay.
The two JPA partners started having their attorneys revise their agreement last year. Schultz said it is mainly because the document is so old. But there may be conflicts that need to resolved as well. There have been no JPA meetings on the revision for many months.
Schultz said it is not out of the question whether Cayucos might decide to seek to build its own WWTP, if an agreement sharing costs of all kinds cannot be worked out by both sides in the new JPA.
"Well, at least we don't have a gun to our head any more," he said, referring to the city pursing a new WWTP that was sure to fail.
