WWTP Hearing May Be Coming Next Door
It now appears that the long-awaited and momentous California Coastal Commission meeting to decide the location and structure of a new Morro Bay-Cayucos wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) will be held in Pismo Beach in January, 25 miles or 32 minutes from Morro Bay, and not 239 miles or four hours and 16 minutes from Morro Bay as Morro Bay and Cayucos had urged last August.
What's the difference between meeting in Ontario and Pismo Beach? Close to four hours in traveling time. What difference would that make in the number of residents showing up for the two meetings? Many, many fewer for the Ontario meeting than one in Pismo Beach.
That means many fewer residents showing up and opposing the Morro Bay-Cayucos proposal to build a new plant on the site of the present facility near the shore of Estero Bay. But with the meeting in Pismo Beach, many more would attend and speak out against that so-called "upgrade" of the old plant, which could have an influence on how the Commission votes on where and how to build a new plant. The Commission staff's choice for the site of a new plant is just east of Morro Bay near Highway 41, one that the staff has argued numerous times would be more productive for Morro Bay and Cayucos in terms of producing more and higher-quality recycled water for public use and at a reduced cost to residential users. It could mean big savings on water for farmers locally and city water customers.
After Morro Bay and the Cayucos Sanitation District (as partners in operating and building a new plant under their Joint Powers Agreement [JPA]) attacked the Coastal Commission staff's report rejecting the site for an upgrade of the existing site, the staff got the Commission to cancel the August 9 meeting, scheduled to adopt a plan for a new plant to provide time for the staff, and the JPA partners to discuss and overcome their differences.
With potential Commission meeting sites immediately available across the state — but nearly all very far from the local Central Coast — the best and closest seemed to be San Francisco in December. But that seemed like a long time (since August 9) to reschedule the meeting. So when another meeting wasn't scheduled in San Francisco, Pismo Beach became an even more desirable site for a meeting because it is so close. It now appears to be where the meeting will be held.
"We are aiming to get this before the Commission at the January meeting, which is tentatively to be held in Pismo Beach, though this has yet to be officially scheduled," a Commission staff member told the Slo Coast Journal. The meeting is being planned for January 9-11 at an undetermined site in Pismo Beach.
Local residents had been organizing a big turnout via buses at an August 9 Commission hearing in Santa Cruz on the plant before it was cancelled, and now an even bigger turnout is likely, since Pismo Beach is so much closer. More people can use cars, and buses are less necessary.
As the Commission staff has pointed out, the California Coastal Act, which governs the Commission's actions, prohibits placing a new plant where the old one now is because that would interfere with coastal views along the coast line and prohibit use of that coastal area for visitor-serving purposes, both Coastal Act priorities.
But the JPA partners — since August — have had two legislators, a paid lobbyist and others lobbying the Commission for their cause — more than four months of it. They are State Senator Sam Blakeslee, local Assembly member Katcho Achadjian, and Susan McCabe. McCabe is the owner of McCabe and Company, a lobbying company, and is a former alternative member of the Coastal Commission, who was hired in March, 2011. McCabe is said to be intensely disliked by Coastal Commissioners and staff.
Blakeslee and Achadjian have two of he worst environmental voting records in the state Legislature.
