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Pismo Beach plans to recycle wastewater

April 29, 2015
Mayor Shelly Higginbotham

Mayor Shelly Higginbotham

The Pismo Beach City Council voted unanimously on April 21 to begin pursuing a recycled water facility at the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

City staff estimates that recycling wastewater could add as much as 950 acre feet to the city’s water supply once it is completed. After an analysis of several alternative approaches to using recycled water to augment the city’s water supply, the council approved the recommended option of full advanced treatment with direct groundwater injection.

“The City of Pismo Beach is excited to move forward in planning a water recycling program, Mayor Shelly Higginbotham said. “Working with our neighboring communities, we will have the opportunity to plan to bring a new water supply to the south county.”

This project is slated to provide a local, sustainable and highly drought resistant source of water for the South County.

The next steps moving forward are:
• Preliminary and Final Design
• Permitting
• Environmental studies
• Securing funding

“We are excited to move forward in our goal of increasing our water supply by recycling our waste water,” said Ed Waage, mayor pro tem. “We not only increase our supply, but we will also reduce the amount of water we discharge into the ocean every day. It is more costly, but it is reliable especially in times of drought.”

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great news, way to go Pismo. if the city of morro bay would have been allowed to go through with their wwtp project they too would be very very close to having this water to use. however thanks to irons, christine Johnson and smuckler, the city of morro bay is decades away from this opportunity.


unrelated, but character revealing, I read that irons is now suing the local Rotary Club because he couldn’t clear his schedule for 2 years – read it in the current issue of the bay news.


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Madam Mayor recently stated Pismo has plenty of water. That’s why the city continues to issue building permits for Hotels, Condo projects, Houses and Strip centers. I love those 30 minute showers.


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If SLO had done this, we’d have had no need for Nacimiento water, and our water bills would be lower — a lot lower — and our supply much more sustainable. Dave Romero propsed this in the 1970s, then walked away from it in favor of an exciting engineering project — the Naci pipeline. Sad.


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San Luis Obispo City DOES recycle water. Damon Garcia LOVR median and Laguna Middle School are currently being watered by it.


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SLO recycles a tiny portion of what goes to the sewer plant FOR IRRIGATION. Please read the story — we’re talking domestic, i.e., tap water, for Pismo. And SLO doesn’t do that. It also doesn’t come close to making full use of its sewer effluent. Most of it’s still dumped into the creek.


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Then why is it that the more we conserve, the higher our water bill goes up? If we had done this, nobody would be able to afford a glass of water in SLO!


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You got it right, there needs to be a revenue stream, so cutting the water flow requires the water costs to go up. Maybe Pismo could build Government Casinos to fund free water for the residents. A rediculous suggestion to remedy the rediculous need for more tourist dollars.


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Flytrap, the reason is quite simple. We got a very expensive pipeline built to Naicmiento, and now must pay for it. The people didn’t do this; the politicians did it for the developers. SLO didn’t need a drop of additional water when it went for Nacimiento — it is all for growth, or as Dave the Pave put it, “for unforeseen circumstances.”


We’re paying for that pipeline whether we use the water or not. Thus rates keep going up.


Had we instead undertaken the sort of conservation/recycling Pismo is doing INSTEAD of Nacimiento, we’d not have this inflated water bill problem.


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YUK, Just the thought makes me gag.


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Already being done in that conservative homeland, Orange County, and elsewhere. Very smart, actually. Get over the “yuk.” Your water already contains antidepressants, antibiotics, hormone disrupting chemicals, and a lot of other yucky stuff. If the treated waste water is properly allowed to infiltrate into the aquifer, it will be pretty pure.


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The water is oxygenated before injection. Biological cleaning continues underground just as it does when rain water seeps into the ground water that reaches a well.


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I wonder what this will cost the residents to support the ten minute hotel showers, before and after. I’d vote for the hotels to put timers on their showers and require onsite water recycle systems on every hotel property. Example: recycle shower water to flush the toilets, water landscape, etc.


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And serve it in the hotel restaurants.


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The hotels bring tens of millions of dollars to the local economy each year. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Without those tourists and their money, your taxes would soar or the city services would be massively cut.


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Even the most casual observer acknowledges that we have a severe lack of water. Why do we continue to build homes and new motels – hello, there is no water for this.


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Because those in a position to approve these new developments need the tax money to prop up the broken ridiculous public sector salaries, benefits and pensions system and they are trying anything and everything to keep it going until they leave with theirs and then it becomes someone else’s problem, instead of doing what is needed and live with the money they have instead of just trying to find more. Cuts are needed and needed quickly


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Sounds sh*tty :)


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It would be nice to see Arroyo Grande think of something like this.


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Arroyo Grande is very much thinking like this. AG has ponied up half the cost of an $80,000

feasibility study the Sanitation district is doing on this very topic.


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Drink up!


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Toilet to table???


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It’s actually called “toilet to tap” and it’s been going on in other parts of the world for years. The bigger story is that this is only being undertaken now…it should have started years ago.


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