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Water restrictions increase for Cambria residents

September 21, 2013

water2The Cambria Community Services District Board of Directors voted unanimously on Friday to continue a moratorium against new home construction and to also restrict people from irrigating their yards and landscapes with tap water.

Dozens of speakers voiced their concerns that lifting the building moratorium while water levels are a decade long low could negatively impact the community. It is possible, if rains come late this year, that the community water supply will fall short.

Nevertheless, board members voted against adding water bill surcharges for customers who use more than the average amount of water.

 


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What in the billy-heII is going on in Cambria?


It was just back in July 2013 that they were working on starting to issue intent-to-serve letters.


I’ve heard of politicians with flip-flop issues, but this is nearly a whiplash status.


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Just close the Motels / Hotels for a month and the local residences will have plenty of water to live and build.


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Quit saying desal…that is ridiculous. If the Coastal Commission won’t let you pump out of the ocean, or put the discharge back…then we are just fooling ourselves and wasting $ on studying. Be done! Let the owners on the wait list sue us…them and us will be dead by the time that suit comes to fruition…let our grand-kids pay for our in-decisions.


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The coastal commision just like the apcd is loaded with tree huggers, they don’t want anything built, don’t want a sewer plant built because a tsunami might hit it, I guess we had better bulldoze MO,Cambria, and Cayucos for the same reason.


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A beautiful, but rather curious community indeed. I recall a time several decades ago when many, many lots were for sale all over Cambria for as little as $5,000.00. It was conditional of course, you could not build until such time as you were issued a “water permit.” That was determined by when you bought your property.

There was of course lots of litigation, and many more lots being re-sold due to the building restriction and after 40 years, not much has changed. Sad indeed.


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Cambria is being screwed by it’s own hand. Any talk of additional water has failed each time it comes up, even the new tank and system improvements was fought over tooth and nail and that was for fire suppression. And that was mandated by the State Fire Marshalls office.

Speaking of fire, Cambria is one of the red flag Calfire areas because of the lack of water, less than adequate number of hydrants and all the dead or dying pines.

And yes desal is expensive but for all the struggling coastal communities without adequate water supplies, it would solve that for generations down the road. Stealing water from over the grade and shipping it south is but a band aide…

Once again poor planning and management by the county, over the past decades has us where we are today. Put off till tomorrow what should be done today, is the unspoken motto downtown and does not solve any of the myriad of problems facing us today…


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Put off till tomorrow what should be done today, is the unspoken motto downtown and does not solve any of the myriad of problems facing us today…

now about agenda 21 and resilient community …what can we learn from a coastal city in Africa or Australia ?.


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A very similar scenario has afflicted the Nipomo Mesa over the last few decades.


The current residents know there is limited water and don’t want to pay for new resources so that MORE people can move into the area (which is, resource-wise, ill suited for much more than rural (2.5+ acre parcels)—vs.—a CSD board of directors which was elected by the help and support of developers and which supports more development and increasing the water infrastructure to serve the new development.


In both the case of Cambria and Nipomo, the people are right. For their community to exist long-term they need to live within the boundaries of their available resources.


The LA Times published an excellent article this morning


(http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-famiglietti-california-groundwater-20130923,0,7356002.story), “California’s Water House of Cards,” which plainly speaks to the irrationality of having unmonitored and unregulated groundwater use. Texas and California are the only states that don’t control groundwater use, and I find it an embarrassment for our state to be lumped together with the ecological disaster known as Texas.


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Desal is not sustainable. It rewards the over-development and over-consumption of water of the spoiled few to contaminate a resource which all humans depend: the ocean.


We’ve been using the ocean as a toxic-waste for centuries. Lately we’ve added the toxic waste of the desal “brine.”


The ocean is already starting to show big signs of distress. If the ocean ecosystem starts failing, it will be like a giant pyramid, increasing in rapidity, which will not be able to stop.


Anybody like reading post-apocalptic fiction, or watching dystopian movies like “Elysium”? That’s what we will face, in a great big hurry, once our ocean ecosystem starts failing.


So, please, enough with the “desal-will-solve-our-problems” meme. It is not true, and it is short-sighted, at best.


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Too bad we never bothered much with desalination in this State. It’s costly, sure, but the alternative is a moratorium on growth, or worse/better: shrinkage of population living in the area under served.


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Cambria count your blessings! You have a wonderful quaint town with No Growth! Growth puts money in developers pockets and screws up Quality of Life. Check out what has happened to Pismo Beach and the Five Cities Area. Ambience has been killed by excessive growth.

Keep your growth where it is and expand your Community Joy, Spirit and Quality of Life.


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Anyone who supports the desalination plant in Cambria does not know the real facts. There are sustainable ways to provide water to that community, which were ignored for years. Instead, millions have been spent, and will continue to be spent, by politicians who are incapable of understanding the reasons desalination is infeasible in the north coast and have little knowledge of sustainable water solutions.


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I find absolutely nothing wrong on a moratorium on growth and/or a shrinkage of population.


I don’t believe areas which live within their resources, including water resources, to be “under served.”


Groundwater is a natural resource. It is not just a resource to be exploited and gobbled up by a gluttonous, entitled current generation, but is to be maintained in such a manner so that all Americans…past, present, future…benefit from it.


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Cambria has tried for years to “fix” their water problem, they are in between a rock and a hard place, too far from anywhere to get a pipeline for State water, should there be enough,or nacimewnto water still too far and also too costly, they have wells in the Santa Rosa basin and the San Simeon basin when they run low thats about all there is,so for years Cambria ha stried to put in a desalt plant but guess what the obstructionists tree huggers don’t want that,it might hurt a mouse,snail,rat,plant,bird or foul the air,mainly they are afraid that with water there will be more building,too bad, people have been sitting on paid for lots for 30 years or better I guess they should be able to build now if they are still alive.


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There is no more available state water. The state has stated this numerous times in the last year, and strongly implied it for years before.


They have come flat out and said they won’t be able to serve more than 50% of the water for which they have contracted to deliver to California’s water contractors. This year they delivered 30%.


Cambria is doing it right. They are living within their resources. If the CCSD board of directors wants to issue intent-to-serve letters, they need to cut off landscaping water, period, and demonstrate for several years in a row that they have excess water after having serve the residential (not landscaping) needs of their current residents.


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This has been going on for decades. Cambrian knows water limits growth and has done nothing to alleviate the problem. Cambrian will not grow because it flat out doesn’t want to and that’s fine. But, let’s stop the charade and just state the truth with no more fake efforts to solve the water problem


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Amen to that…


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They don’t have a “water problem.” They have a balance between their natural resources and their current number of resources.


Does every danged town in America have to be a Las Vegas or Encino? NO.


Cambria is doing it right. They are living sustainably, within their means.


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