UPDATE: Los Olivos CSD doggedly pursuing massive sewer system & sewage plant
Well, Neighbors –
Here is one to file under “Fool me once, shame on me. Fool this whole community repeatedly over the course of a calendar year, shame on you, Los Olivos CSD.”
With zero fanfare a couple of days ago, the Los Olivos CSD posted the long-awaited 30% design study they paid Stantec to produce. If/when you navigate to the page on which the new materials are posted, there is no link to the new documents. Instead, you will need to click on the following text “30% Design (to see the files, click the "+")” to open a drop-down list of the new Stantec documents.
Guess what? The Los Olivos CSD is still studying and planning an old-fashioned gravity sewer system to which every parcel in the District will be required to connect AND a massive sewage treatment plant for this tiny community. LOCAL Control does not have any scientists on staff, but it sure looks to our eyes like the CSD plan is the very definition of “growth inducing”; expensive; and wholly unsuited to the location, community, and landscape.
Still more absurdly, in their June 2022 general meeting, the Los Olivos CSD board members raved about the wonders they had witnessed on their recent visit to the new sewage treatment plant in Cayucos, but they neglected to explain that the new Cayucos plant is appropriately sized and sited to serve a much larger community!
The Cayucos wastewater treatment plant collects sewage for a tourist town of about about 2,200 people, which generates about 340,000 gallons of sewage per day. The Cayucos plant has a maximum capacity of 1.2 million gallons per day! The new Cayucos plant occupies approximately 1.62 acres of land and is situated more than half a mile from any residences.
Since Los Olivos is about a third of the size of, and generates about a third as much sewage per day as, Cayucos, it leaves one to wonder:
1. Why is the Los Olivos CSD still studying and planning to construct a gravity sewer system for the 391 parcels (which serve about 800 residents) in the Los Olivos CSD?
2. Why is the Los Olivos CSD still studying and planning to construct a sewage treatment plant on at least 1.8 acres of prime agricultural land that is immediately surrounded on three sides by homes in which children attending Los Olivos Elementary School reside?
This is NOT the project the Los Olivos CSD told this community it was going to pursue, but the CSD continues to spend your money on this much larger, more expensive, and growth-inducing plan.
If this is not the plan you want, attend the July 13, 2022 meeting and let the Los Olivos CSD know you do not want it and you do not want to pay for it. If you want the Los Olivos CSD to return to the plan approved and endorsed by every relevant stakeholder back in 2019, write to the Los Olivos CSD and let the Board Members and Staff know. Otherwise, the Los Olivos CSD is going to continue to spend your money on this “too big to fail” plan, eventually losing the LOCAL CONTROL the Los Olivos CSD promised this beautiful little community.
