December 7, 2007 Update   At the November 19, 2007 CCSD Board meeting, District Engineer Bob Gresens made a presentation on desalination as an environmental mitigation.  Click on the link below to access this presentation with subsequent descriptive notes by Bob Gresens.   Desalination As An Environmental Mitigation     February 19, 2007 Update   On February 16, the California Coastal Commission delayed its ruling on whether the CCSD can collect data at San Simeon Creek state beach to support design alternatives for a proposed desalination facility.  The decision was postponed due to concerns over whether two monitoring wells could be construed as "structures" and if so, whether a Local Coastal Plan amendment would be required.  The Commission also disagreed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife's snowy plover nesting season. Investigation activities along the beach will be delayed until after the Coastal Commission reconvenes on the permitting and when the snowy plover nesting season is over this Fall. November 2, 2006 Update In August, the County of San Luis Obispo gave the CCSD the go-ahead to complete a geotechnical investigation along the San Simeon Beach and nearby area to obtain scientific data.  This data will be used by engineers to develop alternative project approaches that will be further analyzed within a future project Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on the desalination project.  Past information collected in this area from less resolute, surface-based studies indicated the area may be favorable to placing subterranean wells below the ocean floor.  Such alternatives could effectively avoid impacting fish and marine larvae, which are key environmental concerns associated with desalination facilities.  For more detailed information, go to the Geotechnical/Hydrogeologic Investigation White Paper.    Geotechnical and Hydrogeologic Investigation Activities As the lead agency under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the CCSD completed an Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration (IS/MND) to assess the impacts that may result from implementation of the proposed Geotechnical and Hydrogeologic data collection project. The CCSD followed an open and public process in completing the IS/MND, which included a public hearing on October 14, 2005.  The following provides an IS/MND that was adopted by the CCSD Board.  This document includes the various public comments and responses that were made, along with red-lines to the original text showing where changes were made to accommodate various recommendations. Final October 2005 IS/MND Cover page and Table of Contents Chapter 1and 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Appendices Supplemental Sound Attenuation Study by Carollo Engineers Congresswoman Lois Capps obtains $3 million credit for desalination On June 16, 2005, Congresswoman Capps secured a $3 million credit authorization for the CCSD to cover costs already incurred in design, permitting and environmental studies of its desalination project. For more details, click on Desalination Press Release.   At the March 25, 2004 Board Meeting, the revised Draft Army Corp/CCSD Desal Agreement listed below was presented by the CCSD District Engineer. The document also includes some changes made after the March 25 meeting shown in yellow highlight. A Build-Out Reduction Study status report was also presented at the meeting. The Board unanimously voted to designate a Study Committee to discuss potential cooperative water planning with the San Simeon CSD relating to construction of a desalination facility. 3.31.04 Letter from Army Corps of Engineers District Counsel re: Project Cooperative Agreement 3.27.06 Final Army Corps/CCSD Desal Agreement Note: The above document requires Acrobat Reader 6.0 to view. Go to http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html to download this program. December 18, 2003 Progress Report August 21, 2003 Capacity Summary   In response to questions raised by residents and property owners regarding the target capacity for the desalination plant, CCSD General Manager Vern Hamilton prepared the following summary presented at the August 21, 2003 Board Meeting. At the July 24, 2003 Board Meeting, the Board of Directors identified 4,650 existing and future connections as the target capacity and directed staff to proceed with the engineering, design and environmental review process for a desalination facility. It is recommended that the Board confirm or amend this summary for the record. In order to begin the planning and environmental review process, the District must begin with a general idea of the capacity of the desalination plant to be built. The CCSD Board recognizes that despite the presence of hundreds of vacant building parcels in the Cambria community, there is insufficient infrastructure, services and resources to support additional growth in the community. Even if an inexhaustible supply of water could be found, these deficiencies argue against a large population increase in Cambria.  It is therefore the Board’s intention that the water system should ultimately be sized to match the limitations that exist, rather than to place additional pressure on infrastructure, services and resources that are severely limited.     Minimize Environmental Impact In addition, the Board recognizes that Cambria exists within a fragile environment containing threatened and endangered species. It is the further intention of the Board that the water system should be designed, built and operated in such a manner as to minimize the impact on these environmental elements.    With this understanding, the Board has directed staff to proceed with the necessary planning and environmental analysis to implement improvements in the water supply system to support the current resident and visitor population of Cambria with additional water service only for those properties on the current CCSD water wait list, and an appropriate proportionate amount of multi-family, commercial and visitor-serving commercial connections, as required by the current Coastal Development Permit for our facilities.   It is the intention of the Board that proper environmental review and resulting mitigation measures will place sufficient constraints on the project to prevent its future expansion and ultimate negative impacts on the local environment. It is understood that the environmental review (CEQA) process could result in a modification of the project service capacity and that the size of the project will ultimately be determined by that process. However, in order to undertake the necessary review, a proposed target capacity had to be identified. That the Board chose the lowest alternative capacity presented in the master plan indicates its commitment to keeping the size of the project within the realistic growth capacity of the community. If Possible, Increase Water to Current Customers Another element of the target capacity of the system is the amount of water that should be available to current and future users. Through many years of aggressive conservation, the District has reached a point where over 70% of its residential customers consume 12 units of water or less every two months. This is a remarkably low per capita consumption rate when one considers that less than 20 years ago, a preceding Board was attempting to reduce the level of consumption to 20 units. The Board has indicated that the District should, if possible, increase the amount of water available to current users, if such increase can be accomplished without harm to local eco-systems and without taxing local resources. The selection of desalination as a supplemental water supply provides a unique opportunity to address this issue. Local stream aquifers and their habitats need not be impacted by a small per capita increase in consumption through the use of this technology. Once again, however, the environmental review process will determine if this goal can be achieved without harming the affected ocean habitat.    It is the intention of the Board to establish a policy of reasonable per-capita usage as a result of the planning and review process associated with the project. The Board has established a goal of increasing the current measure of a single Equivalent Dwelling Unit (EDU) from 12 to 18 units of consumption every two months. This amount of consumption is still below average for a California community and will still require the application of conservation techniques to maintain.