LandWatch must pay Cambria CSD $23,786, court says in ruling

A nonprofit environmental watchdog group must pay more than $25,000 in court costs to three governmental agencies the group had sued in 2014 over Cambria’s emergency water-supply project.

According to a tentative ruling filed Nov. 1 by Judge Ginger Garrett, LandWatch San Luis Obispo County must pay $1,648.82 to the county, $1,522 to the state Office of Planning and Research and the State Water Resources Control Board and $23,786.65 to the Cambria Community Services District.

District General Manager Jerry Gruber wrote in his report to the Board of Directors on Sept. 22 that, as of Sept. 16, the LandWatch suit had cost the residents of Cambria $296,533.”

The district built the water-reclamation plant in 2014 under an emergency permit granted by the county because of the potential that the community could run out of water during the drought. The plant’s array of treatment processes treat a brackish blend of treated wastewater, freshwater from creek underflow and seawater. The highly treated water from the plant is then pumped into the aquifer, where it replenishes the district’s source wells.

In October 2014, LandWatch and the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic challenged the district’s operation of the plant under the emergency permit. Garrett ruled against the lawsuit in July 2016.

Deborah Sivas, a Stanford Law School professor and director of the clinic, has said in the past that the lawsuit was never intended to stop the project, but was to force the district to follow California environmental law and prepare a full and comprehensive environmental impact report for the project, to make sure that plant operations wouldn’t harm the environment.

The district must meet those requirements to obtain a permanent permit to run the plant, whether there’s an emergency water-supply situation or not. CCSD’s consultant has prepared a draft supplemental environmental impact report, received comments on it and is now studying those comments to see what, if any, changes should be made to the report and/or the project itself.

Sivas said in a Nov. 8 email interview, “LandWatch’s recourse is to appeal the cost award. Whether it will do so depends on what the final ruling says.”

This story was originally published November 9, 2016 at 10:12 AM with the headline "LandWatch must pay Cambria CSD $23,786, court says in ruling."