SewerWatch Exclusive: Planning Commission "Moves the Sewer"

The wandering treatment facility for the Los Osos wastewater project appears to have finally found a home.

This afternoon, the SLO County Planning Commission voted to construct the facility at a location known as the Giacomazzi site, just east of town near the Los Osos cemetery, according to sources.

The decision goes against the county's Public Works Department's recommendation to build the facility at a site known as the "Tonini Ranch" -- a 400-plus acre site further east of town.

Opponents to the Tonini site argued that it was outside of the water basin for Los Osos, and the water used in the treatment process wouldn't be returned to the town's aquifers -- its only source of water -- and would exacerbate a sea water intrusion problem in the aquifers.

Planning Commissioners agreed.

In 1998, county engineers originally proposed to build the project at a site near the Los Osos middle school, but that "ready to go" project was halted when the town voted to form a Community Services District so a small group of Los Osos residents known as the Solution Group could build an alternative project, labeled as "better, cheaper, faster" by its citizen-developers.

The treatment facility for that project -- with an advertised "maximum monthly payment of $38.75" -- was proposed to be built at a mid-town location known as the Tri-W site, however, that project failed in August, 2000.

The LOCSD, then turned to a vastly different project that wasn't going to be "better, cheaper, faster," and wasn't going to have a "maximum monthly payment of $38.75," however, Solution Group-turned-LOCSD officials failed to give voters another say in the matter, and the LOCSD retained the mid-town site for their second attempt at a sewer project -- this time with an industrial sewer plant in the middle of town.

That extremely unpopular decision (a recent community wide survey showed that only 9-percent of Los Osos Prohibition Zone residents favored the Tri-W site for a sewer plant) led to the recall, in September, 2005, of the three remaining LOCSD Directors that were responsible for spending some $25 million developing the mid-town projects (plural).

After the recall election, State legislation gave control of the project to SLO County officials, and their development process led them to the Tonini Ranch site.

However, just this afternoon, Planning Commissioners went against that recommendation, and supported the Giacomazzi site.

"Another victory," said former LOCSD Director, Julie Tacker, in a phone interview.

Tacker was one of five District Directors that agreed to stop the wildly unpopular Tri-W project following the recall election.

Tacker was also a vocal opponent of the County's recommendation to build the facility at the Tonini site, due to the fact that it was outside of the Los Osos water basin.

The final say on the project's location will be by the County Board of Supervisors, if the Board ultimately agrees to implement the project.

However, they are expected to adopt the Planning Commission's findings, again, if they agree to implement the project.

That decision has yet to be made.

In their report to the Planning Commission for today's meeting, Public Works officials wrote, "The (SLO County Los Osos wastewater) Project team, given the clear social infeasibility issue associated with Mid Town (Tri-W) and the infeasible status of the LOCSD disposal plan, believes that if either of those options are deemed by decision-makers to be the best solution for Los Osos, then serious consideration should be given by the Board to adopt a due diligence resolution and not pursue Project implementation."

They added, "the Tri-W project was the LOCSD's project, not the County's project."

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