San Simeon CSD has banned new water hookups for 31 years. This study could change that
When will the San Simeon services district end its 31-year ban on issuing new water connections?
Members of the San Simeon Community Services District board of directors took initial steps toward that goal on Nov. 13, unanimously authorizing the preparation of a major report about lifting the longtime moratorium on new water connections in the tiny town.
The analysis and study would list potential impacts to the environment if the moratorium were to be lifted, a study that’s required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The study also could itemize various options for mitigating those impacts.
Researching, preparing, vetting and getting approvals for the CEQA study is a complex process at an already jam-packed time for the small district.
The San Simeon CSD is getting closer to building a new water reservoir and striving to meet stringent state Coastal Commission requirements for the district’s responsibilities for collecting, treating and disposing of sewage.
District officials conferred recently with their counterparts at the Cambria Community Services District about the possibility of sharing wastewater-treatment facilities sometime in the future, but they’re far from making any conclusions or decisions, according to district general manager Charles Grace and Cambria CSD board president David Pierson.
Grace estimates that doing the CEQA study on lifting the San Simeon moratorium could take from a year to 18 months, starting with a request for proposals from a handful of firms. “There’s a limited number of firms that do this type of analysis,” he said.
Grace said he didn’t expect the CEQA study would exceed the $130,000 threshold that would trigger the requirement for a public bidding process.
“This is a professional-services contract, not a construction project. So, the (request for proposal) isn’t as intense,” nor would it be as expensive, Grace said.
Through the decades, district officials have expressed several rationales behind continuing the moratorium on new connections, including frequent water-quality issues when sea water intrudes into the wellfield, and a limited water supply from a 50-year-old, 150,000-gallon underground water reservoir or tank. Those problems are exacerbated by the area’s frequent dry spells and droughts.
San Simeon also has a small, aging sewage-treatment facility that would be difficult to expand in its current location.
Besides, the plant discharges treated effluent into the ocean and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, a practice that regulating agencies and environmental stewards fervently don’t like.
The tiny ocean-view town of San Simeon, which straddles both sides of Highway 1, is primarily made up of hotels, motels, condominiums, townhomes and a few other businesses. The district currently has 208 connections hooked up to its water and sewage systems, but many of those connections serve multiple housing or commercial units.
It’s been a long wait for people who own land in town and who have been unable to build on it.
Grace said two major developers were at the Nov. 13 meeting.
Robert Halter submitted a letter requesting will-serve letters for 15 townhomes on his property off Avonne Avenue. That property has been on the district’s water-connection wait list for some time, Grace said.
David Sansone also attended, Grace said, handing the district a $30,000 check to add his property at the corner of Pen Way and Jasper Way to the waitlist so he can eventually build his proposed project of 24 new condos.
Grace said some others at the meeting indicated they’d like to develop their properties and are in favor of doing the CEQA study.
Other “community members urged the board to take the time to ‘stop and think’” about the ramifications of lifting the moratorium, “which is precisely what the CEQA analysis is intended” to give them, the district general manager said.
Among those opposing the study and lifting the moratorium in the foreseeable future is Henry Krzcuik, who represents the community on the North Coast Advisory Council.
In a flurry of emails to the district, Krzcuik wrote that having enough water and providing basic fire protection should be the CSD’s priorities — not lifting a moratorium that could make those problems worse.
The district does have a new reverse-osmosis system designed to improve water quality, he said, but instead of providing more water as desal plants do, it actually provides less because it takes water to desalt water, and the brine left over from the reverse-osmosis process must be discarded.
The district is working toward having a new $1.2 million, 400,000-gallon water tank on Hearst Ranch, but that reservoir isn’t yet online.
Grace said in mid-November that a combination of grants, U.S. Department of Agriculture loans and self-funding capital investment would pay for the project.
The district hasn’t yet approached the Coastal Commission about the eventual lifting of the moratorium, Grace said.
“There’s nothing taking place at the moment, as far as permit applications of seeking entitlements,” he said. “We’re doing the CEQA study so the board has all the information they need to make a decision, and later, so they can answer questions from the Coastal Commission.”
