After a period of over six years, the Cambria Community Services District (CCSD) submitted its supposedly completed application for a regular coastal development permit (CDP) to the SLO County Planning and Building Department in July 2020. The initial application for a regular CDP was submitted in June 2014. Prior to that, the county issued an emergency permit in May 2014 to build the rush-to-judgment Emergency Water Supply Project, built in October 2014. The facility has been fraught with numerous problems, including the decommissioning of the brine waste evaporation pond, ordered by the Regional Water Quality Control Board, in addition to numerous fines from the same agency. Upon review by county planning, it was determined that only a small percent of the application was complete—after more than six years! The district anticipates having the regular CDP by this October/November, but it will be months, if not a year or more, before the requirements are met. The project will no doubt be appealed to the California Coastal Commission when and if approved by county planning and the Board of Supervisors.
The emergency water project is a brackish water desalination facility that was presented to the community in the form of a Proposition 218 rate increase, to pay for a $9 million project (with interest, $13.4 million). The intent of the project, as we Cambrians were led to believe, was to guarantee a supply of water during a level 3 drought emergency for current residents. The district was able to secure $4.3 million from Proposition 84 state funding, which we were informed would be used to pay down the loan. Not a penny went toward paying the loan. The very same day the check arrived from the state funding, the district’s public information officer, Tom Gray (a candidate running for CCSD), issued a memo in which the project was given a different name: the Sustainable Water Facility. The purpose was changed from an emergency project to a project allowing for growth of 650 parcels, despite the fact that Cambria has been in declared water moratorium since 2001.
Cambrians have been footing the bill to allow for approximately 650 projects on a water wait list for folks to build their “dream” homes, or for speculation purposes, through significant rate increases to pay for the ever mounting issues associated with the facility. The district is currently in litigation (since 2018) with the firm that designed and built the project. The facility has been shut down since December 2016, and has not been used to produce water—we haven’t needed it!
The major topic for Cambria CSD candidates (of which there are four) in this election will be growth vs. no growth, an Emergency Water Supply Project (as was originally intended and agreed to by a majority of Cambrians), or the Sustainable Water Facility, for growth. Cambrians never got to vote for the Sustainable Water Facility—that was decided for the community behind closed doors in 2015, and the CCSD followed through with that in the 2017 supplemental environmental impact report.
So the choice is to keep paying more and more for those who want to build here—in a town that is already overgrown, extremely vulnerable to fire, and in a year when fires rage throughout the state—or to complete the application for the emergency water supply project—for an emergency supply of water in times of drought—the reason it was supposedly built in the first place. I’ll be voting for the two candidates who do not support growth, who want to protect our town, and want our ratepayer dollars spent on much-needed infrastructure: Karen Dean and Harry Farmer. I urge Cambrians who have had enough of this unsustainable project, costing us many more millions than we were led to believe, to do the same. Δ
Tina Dickason writes from Cambria. Send a response for publication to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Autumn Arts Annual 2020.
Very good analysis. A few things to add, first, this machine does zero for fire suppression and still they push for more building in densely wooded areas! Second, it operates at 50% efficiency as half the water being injected into the aquifer flows away from the production wells and toward the sea. Third, the unit will not make the required production expressed in the project description now at county for CDP approval. Finally, I wonder if the citizens of Oceano have any idea that we’re going to truck hundreds of thousands of gallons of hazardous effluent through their town to be dumped into the ocean down there. Mr. Gibson is in full support of all this and you folks might want to have say in that dumping. Let him know thanks.
Thank you, Ms. Dickason, for a careful, accurately descriptive letter about this water treatment plant problem in Cambria.
Over all the 18 years that I’ve lived here, a struggle has been going on. What makes a high quality of life in Cambria? Some people claim it’s getting 18 units of water every two months,
13,464 gallons per household, and permitting 600-700 more houses.
On the other hand, the watersheds are already damaged by each household now here using 2,839 gal. per month. The ecological balance is also disrupted by commercial use of water, including the tourism industry. We humans depend on environmental sustainability and secure ecological systems. Without that the quality of all life plunges down into disaster.
I hope that’s kept at the forefront of all elections in SLO County. Here in Cambria I too will vote for Karen Dean and Harry Farmer.
In my opinion, the biggest disgrace in all of this is how carefully plans for the EWS (EMERGENCY Water System) to be used as an SWF (Sustainable Water Facility) have been covertly leached into Cambrian rate payers pocketbooks. The day that grant monies were received for the EWS, Tom Gray sent a memo stating a change of name and use for the facility to SWF….done deal. Rate payers had absolutely no say in those changes.
For years rate payers have been forking over their monies to pay off the loan for the plant via a SWF Water Charge, and have been paying into a reserve account via an SWF Water Usage Charge. The reserve is supposedly to cover an estimated amount the plant would cost to run for 2 months per year as an SWF. Tom Gray recently stated that he feels rate payers should continue paying the usage fee (for a plant that isnt used ) and their moneys rolled over from year to year (with cost of living increases every 5 years!). Looking at the 2020/21 budget, the reserve account appears to be in a deficit despite having monies collected for over 2 years. This plant is ridiculously expensive to maintain and it doesnt even run…..ever. How in the world will rate payers monies ever keep up? They wont.
All of this energy and money and litigation for a plant that uses treated waste water (hello COVID-19 ), that will produce in reality only half the amount of water they are claiming, pollute the environment with tens of thousands of gallons of brine waste, and CANNOT HELP IN THE EVENT OF FIRE (it takes over 60 days for water to be processed/available).
Cambrians, look at your bill. Guess what, its going to go up…….WAY UP if Tom Gray and David Pierson are voting CCSD board members aligning themselves with C4H20 (Cambrians for Water) madness.
VOTE FOR the candidates who have a history of working FOR the BENEFIT of Cambrians KAREN DEAN & HARRY FARMER.
Thank you Tina well said. The EWS sits on ESHA property if the County moves this forward fools. Open your eyes rate payers do not vote for the same like minded folks who got us into this mess. Time for a real change with Karen Dean and keeping Harry Farmer we will have a check and balance with these two. NO to Gray he’ll make sure your rates are raised to support his own agenda such as water for a swimming pool for his wife, and his friends who are on the water wait list to build out Cambria.
A reminder that the supposed “brackish” water desal is in fact treating sewage wastewater. This is a true TOILET-TO-TAP project without the safeguards and redundancies to guarantee safe drinking water, especially during a pandemic. But TOILET-TO-TAP should look good on those Chamber of Commerce brochures.
Thank you, Eugene, I trust your analysis of protocol in testing and filtering “treated” water, as you have solid education and experience with treatment plants and water sourcing. Where did that money go? This is quite disturbing. Can the SLO county assign proper investigation, or can we hire and accountant? The forest should be protected. Water harvesting is a much better way to approach this issue. While I don’t approve of Climate Control, via geoengineering of our atmosphere, it looks like we have received more rainfall than years past, so a true Sustainable ravine step catchment system may render the problems of the mini-desal unit mute. We need to spend our dollars wisely.
Most needed is housing for low-income local workers. Rents are obscene and hardly any apartments, condos and studios have been built in the past 35+ years. It is beyond an emergency.