Turnout low at 2nd Cambria groundwater workshop | San Luis Obispo Tribune

A second public workshop on the services district’s groundwater management plan generated no controversy, no comment and scant attendance Thursday afternoon, Oct. 29, at the Cambria Veterans Memorial Building.

The plan must be finalized and approved for the Cambria Community Services District to receive a $4.3 million drought-related grant from the state, which would help pay for the district’s emergency water-supply project (EWS).

“We’re working on the EIR (environmental impact report) to support that project,” district engineer Bob Gresens said, “and we’re making some pretty good progress, so hopefully, we’ll get all that out by the end of the year for public review.”

Only four members of the public, three of whom arrived after the meeting started, attended the workshop, and none spoke during the public comment period. The workshop lasted just a little more than half an hour.

“I think we’re making good progress in several directions,” said CCSD board President Gail Robinette, who attended the meeting along with Vice President Mike Thompson.

The groundwater management draft plan was posted at www.cambriacsd.org Oct. 19, and a revised version, based on public input received after an earlier workshop two days later, was posted Oct. 28.

Gresens went through a brief overview of the plan at the Oct. 29 workshop, highlighting changes made after the first workshop.

Thompson, who Robinette forms the district’s ad hoc committee on water permitting, commended Mike Broadhurst and George Kendall for providing written feedback after the first meeting.

The revisions weren’t extensive. One, for instance, added three agencies (Natural Resources Conservation Service, California Cattlemen’s Association and Santa Rosa Creek Valley Groundwater Monitoring Cooperative) to a list of organizations that could be included in a

multiagency steering committee.

Another update added a reference to an order from the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board regarding water quality monitoring requirements for irrigated agriculture.

In addition, one item was added to the “Recommendations” section: that future updates to the plan “should allow for the time and provide the necessary resources to update the water budget for both basins using current water use information and an associated or similar modeling effort that was used in the original USGS Report.”

Gresens closed his report by noting that the next step in the process is a special CCSD board meeting to consider adopting the final plan at 12:30 p.m. Nov. 12.