Synopsis: As expected, Morro Bay and the Cayucos Sanitary District have failed once again — probably for the last time — to convince the California Coastal Commission staff that they should be allowed to upgrade the old existing wastewater treatment plant where it has been since 1954. And now, the Commission staff is preparing to essentially lay out what kind of a plant the two communities will be required to build — after trying for four years to show them what that entails, all of which is explicit in a Commission order and two Commission staff letters, which have been ignored by the city and Cayucos district.
The seemingly last shot of Morro Bay and the Cayucos Sanitary District to convince the California Coastal Commission staff that the two communities should be allowed to "upgrade" the old existing sewer plant rather than build a new one somewhere else — as the Commission staff for four years has made clear is required — appears to have been rejected by that staff, which is not surprising but very significant.
It means the Commission (CCC) staff now will direct MB/CSD to begin planning a new wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) to meet what the staff contends are statutory requirements. The question is when will the staff do that.
The CCC staff now is seeking to arrange a meeting with the Morro Bay and Cayucos (MB/CSD) staffs to lay out what the Commission staff contends MB/CSD must do in planning for a new WWTP. It means that four years of MB/CSD avoiding what the Commission staff has told them — and still says — is required by the Coastal Act and the city's Local Coastal Plan for a new WWTP is near its end.
Eventually, the Commission itself will rule on what kind of and where a new WWTP must be built at one of its regular meetings. Dennis Delzeit, the contracted project manager, has suggested such a Commission hearing and action on a project in June in Huntington Beach or in July in the San Diego area.
But Susan Craig, the lead CCC staff person on the MB/CSD project, said it would probably be premature to take up the project in those months, given the need to resolve so many differences between MB/CSD and the CCC staff. She said taking such action might be possible at the Commission's scheduled meeting on August 8-10 in Santa Cruz.
Craig is asking MB/CSD to review the many reports it has submitted to the CCC staff over the past year in order to identify locations for a site where recycled water from a new plant could be injected into stream aquifers that could be drawn upon to provide potable and disinfected water for use for irrigation within Morro Bay, for irrigation by farms east of Morro Bay and even for household water supplies. Her citing that need strongly indicates that the capacity of a new plant to produce substantial amounts of recycled water is a key, if not the key, to what is going to be required of a new plant by the Coastal Commission under recommendations of its staff.
It is also key to Morro Bay's water supply because it could and likely would reduce or eliminate the city's reliance on supplies from the State Water Project, which is not only very expensive but also growing more and more precarious in its reliability.
The CCC has pointed out that "the reliability of State Water has decreased due to judicial decisions regarding endangered fish species and concerns about global warming. In addition, the use of State Water is extremely energy intensive and has significant environmental impacts far removed from Morro Bay, including impacts on anadromous fish and other species in the Delta. These, and other, State water concerns highlight the general issue associated with ensuring that appropriate measures are taken to move towards and ensure a locally sustainable water supply." (A previous, more detailed article on this recycled water issue is at Slo Coast Journal / Newsflash.)
In addition, the CCC said, a plant that is able to provide "a new supply of reclaimed water in a community where the existing water supply is not sustainable and water shortages are frequent," would be invaluable to protect the security and well-being of residents. And, the CCC staff has added, it probably will be less costly to water-users in Morro Bay than state water, which is notoriously expensive.
What most people don't understand and most advocates of upgrading the existing plant, such as four out of five members of the Morro Bay City Council and the Cayucos Sanitary District board, ignore is the authority — even the legal obligation — the Coastal Commission has to require a new WWTP be built at an alternative location.
Why? For one thing, the present plant is in a tsunami zone and a 100-year flood hazard area — and climate experts predict the sea level will rise to compound its exposure to ocean water. Plus, the property on which the present plant is located must be devoted — if a new plant is going to be developed, as state authorities are requiring — to visitor-serving and unrestricted view sheds, both of which would be blocked if the plant — proposed to be even taller than it is — were to remain where it is. A Commission report issued on March 11, 2011, when the Commission rejected the MB/CSD plan to upgrade the existing plant, said removal of the plant from its present location is required under "public access and recreation policies of both the City’s certified LCP (Local Coastal Plan) as well as the Coastal Act."
In its December, 2010, letter to MB/CSD, the CCC staff spelled this out in detail:
"The project has the potential to cause adverse impacts to such public recreational access and visitor-serving resources because it would reduce the availability of extremely scarce oceanfront land for such high LCP and Coastal Act priority purposes, and because it would cause adverse impacts to such resources due to both construction activities and additional truck traffic anticipated during operation of the new WWTP. It would also maintain an industrial site in the middle of an area that the LCP clearly contemplates for visitor-serving enhancements, including with respect to connecting Embarcadero Road in this area."
Where does the Commission's legal authority come from? One source is the city of Morro Bay's LCP, which the city adopted and the Commission certified.
In 1976, after state voters approved the concept, the California Legislature enacted the Coastal Act, which established a mandate for coastal cities and counties to manage the conservation and development of coastal resources through a comprehensive planning and regulatory program called the Local Coastal Program (LCP).
An LCP identifies the location, type, densities, and other ground rules for future development in the coastal zone. Each LCP includes a land use plan and its implementing measures. These programs govern decisions that determine the short and long term conservation and use of coastal resources. While each LCP reflects unique characteristics of individual local coastal communities, regional and statewide interests and concerns must also be addressed in conformity with Coastal Act goals and policies. The Coastal Commission formally reviews LCPs for consistency with Coastal Act standards.
After an LCP has been certified by the Coastal Commission, coastal permitting authority over most new development is transferred to the local government. The Commission retains permanent coastal permit jurisdiction over development proposed on the immediate shoreline (tidelands, submerged lands, and public trust lands). It also hears appeals from certain local government coastal permit decisions, and reviews and approves any amendments to previously certified LCPs.
In addition to the LCP, the CCC staff letter said, the Coastal Act prioritizes public recreational use and development for areas along the shoreline such as this one. For example, Coastal Act Section 30210 requires that public recreational opportunities be maximized, Section 30221 protects oceanfront land for recreational use, Section 30222 prioritizes the use of suitable lands for visitor-serving commercial recreational facilities, and Section 30223 reserves upland areas necessary to support public recreational uses for such uses.
Despite all this information and citations of LCP and Coastal Act requirements, MB/CSD and its engineering firm, Dudek, have ignored it in total. That leaves the project in the hands of the Commission and its staff to enforce the law, i.e. the LCP and the Coastal Act.
As a contract between the CCC and the city of Morro Bay, the Morro Bay City Council is required to uphold the LCP. But the Council's majority of mayor Bill Yates and Council members Carla Borchard, Nancy Johnson, and George Leage have failed to do so by engaging in what some residents consider their bad faith actions in overriding the city Planning Commission's rejection of the draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for an upgrade of the plant. The Commission did so because it recognized that MB/CSD had been told by the CCC staff to review and evaluate a number of possible alternative sites for a new plant, which the DEIR did not do. It only considered upgrading the present plant.
(After the Commission's rejection of the DEIR, Yates sought to fire the entire Planning Commission but could not obtain the necessary three votes among the five Council members to do that.)
Because of their inaction, it seems clear that MB/CSD have wasted millions of dollars of local taxpayers' money by spending funds on proposed plant designs using no bid contracts that have produced no progress toward the goal of starting construction of a new plant. That is because those moves were taken before any development permit was granted by the CCC, which ultimately rejected the DEIR and refused to grant a development permit on March 11, 2011. And yet MB/CSD continues to pursue an upgrade of the present plant.
Some residents consider this to be gross mismanagement of the WWTP development process, which could become a major issue in Morro Bay's June 5 primary election, and in the November 6 general election in both Morro Bay and the Cayucos Sanitary District. Yates, Borchard, and Council member Noah Smukler, who has voted against the Council majority's much-criticized actions on the project, are candidates in the primary, and Robert Enns, Howard Fones, and Daniel Chivens of the CSD board may be candidates for reelection on November 6. Their terms on the CSD board expire in November.
