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Grover Beach and Arroyo Grande vote to leave recycle water agency

May 15, 2024

By KAREN VELIE

Both Grover Beach and Arroyo Grande city councils voted this week to quit the joint powers association tied to the Central Coast Blue reclaimed water project.

Last month, the Arroyo Grande City Council voted to quit the project. However, while the council voted to stop investing in the project, at the time the council voted to remain in the Central Coast Blue Joint Powers Authority, at a cost to the city of about $80,000 a year.

However, the Grover Beach City Council voted Monday to completely withdraw from the Central Coast Blue Joint Powers Authority and to stop paying to fund the agency.

After discussing Grover Beach’s withdrawal, on Tuesday the Arroyo Grande City Council said they saw no reason to remain in the controversial agency, and they voted unanimously to withdraw.

In response to years of drought, in 2016, the cities of Pismo Beach, Arroyo Grande and Grover Beach agreed on plans for a recycled water project to bring an additional 900 to 1,000 acre feet of water annually to the South County cities. However, the Central Coast Blue project soared in price from an estimated $29 million to a current estimate of between $135 million to $158 million, even though the project was shrinking in scope.

 


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Well people you voted in semi-intelligent people to serve you. (Semi) because the vast majority of citizens didn’t want this project (Intelligent) because they allowed common sense to prevail at last. Next election let’s look elsewhere please. This took them way to long and a waste of a lot of our money to come to their senses.


17

Gee AG certainly doesnt have anything that could use $80,000 they are wasting in funding this failed JPA, but then again AG has a history of funding failed JPA’s, they have funded the failed FCFA for overva decade.


11

I am relieved to see that AG and GB will not be financially ravaged the way that Cambria has, by those who take advantage of a serious situation to rip us off. The concern for future water availability for current population is boosted by those wishing to continue to “develop” and enrich themselves at the expense of those already paying a premium for water. They push these projects through on a less than informed public who “trust the experts” and “technology” for an easy answer.


That price tag, in the case of Cambria, is constantly inflating, with no end in sight and no water to show for it. Our initial cost was to be $5,000,000. It is currently $36,000,000, over 10 years later, and still no water. And the current configuration of the plant is highly environmentally unsound and thus un permittable. Also, too expensive to run, and we are still paying. Many of us fought this debacle, in favor of tried and true, environmentally enhancing and far less costly answers that would have given us ample water by now, but too many newcomers and those who held lots and wanted to cash in forced the issue. Money talks.


These various “water machines” are a scam, IMHO. Even the ones in other parts of the world that supposedly work are destroying the environment. The Persian Gulf is a prime example. But people get sold on the idea of “easy” water, and instead of working with nature, buy into the scam.


Good on all of you who dodged that bullet. There is going to be a day of education on bringing back the BEAVERS to our area at Cal Poly this Saturday. They once thrived here and created vast riparian areas of stored water. Wouldn’t it be magnificent to have those back where they are needed to help prevent floods, recharge our aquifers and mitigate and prevent fires? If you are at all interested, contact SLO BEAVER BRIGADE and sign up. You will not be disappointed.


18

I’m sure later on down the road the city council will vote to give their self a raise using the money that would have gone towards the central coast blue project.


17

The council and mayor already gave themselves a huge raise recently, they were figuring how to pay for it, first the new sales tax was suppose too, but when CCB came around the amount of money they would have to play with was initially to good to believe, so they postponed the sales tax proposal. When funding for CCB crumbled on this financially disastrous project I’d guess the council is scrambling to find the money they need for the raises they already gave themselves, so if they can’t take it from somewhere else I’d expect the sales tax increase talk to resurface. We always knew they would bring it back but they were likely hoping just not this soon, more so when the voters aren’t paying so close attention to the financial problems in the city.


7

It amazes me that the only career in America where you can vote to give yourself a raise regardless of job performance is as a politician. If these people worked for a company they would have been fired for all of the wasteful spending not promoted by the company they worked for.


6

Pretty sure the city council cannot give themselves a raise from the water enterprise fund and especially since any small rate increases are to sustain existing infrastructure.


1

Directly no but they can and do play the shell game, especially with the famous “General Fund” money all the time.


6