Environment

According to state and federal regulatory agencies, the construction (via an emergency permit) and limited operation of the facility has already resulted in negative environmental impacts to San Simeon Creek and its surrounding critical habitat for a number of endangered species.

Adding truck transport of hundreds of thousands of gallons of RO wastewater through Cambria to the Oceano or Kettleman City disposal sites exponentially increases the negative environmental impacts.

• In October 2016, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife wrote, “The project has likely already resulted in adverse impacts to fish and wildlife resources of the San Simeon Creek and lagoon and to Van Gordon Creek, including a reduction of stream flows needed to maintain fish and wildlife populations and related impacts to habitat within and adjacent to these streams and lagoons.”

• Also in October 2016, writing in response to CCSD’s DSEIR (Supplemental Environment Impact report), the State Coastal Commission commented that, “(1) The San Simeon watershed does not appear to have adequate water available to support the project and (2) Both the existing project (the “EWS”) and the proposed project (the “WRF”) will have significant adverse impacts on habitat and biological resources, including listed species, that have not been adequately analyzed in DSEIR.”

The commission goes on to point out that the growth proposed in DSEIR would not be supported by the project once the constraints of water available in the San Simeon watershed are adequately analyzed.

For at least six years, San Luis Obispo County and state and federal regulatory agencies have requested an in-stream flow study of San Simeon Creek. The CCSD has informed the County that the study would be finished in the summer of 2021; the recently released study plan has many problems, according to the Coastal Commission.

Since there is no hard data on how much water actually flows through the creek, it is impossible to quantify the cumulative environmental impacts of the project.

And while the CCSD has concluded that the impact of hundreds of diesel truck trips through Cambria hauling RO wastewater is ‘not significant,’ many of the residents of Cambria that will have to deal with the traffic, noise, and diesel exhaust do not agree.

To summarize, in the expert opinion of state and federal regulatory agencies, the implementation of the WRF will result in negative environmental impacts to our community, while providing no guarantee that the WRF will ever be able to supply the water required to support the proposed growth.