Cambria desalination plan dealt a blow
California Coastal Commission rules against testing at the mouth of Santa RosaCreek
Kathe Tanner
San Luis Obispo Tribune
12/16/2011
An Army Corps of Engineers’ project to test the soil and sample water near the mouth of Santa Rosa Creek is not consistent with the state’s rules and goals for the habitat and coastline there, the California Coastal Commission ruled during a hearing on Friday, Dec. 9.
Whether that unanimous decision will be a death knell for the proposed tests there — and ultimately for intake and outfall facilities for a Cambria Community Services District desalination plant — is yet to be determined.
Such a plant would be located elsewhere, off the beach.
Several agencies involved in planning for a Cambrian desalinization plant have come to loggerheads about how and where to conduct a survey of potential seaside locales for the plant’s underground intake and outfall pipes. Cambria’s service district and the Army Corps of Engineers have presented a new plan to survey the mouth of Santa Rosa Creek while the Coastal Commission opposes such a move.
A previous planned survey of an area near the mouth of Santa Rosa Creek had been approved by the California Coastal Commission but ran afoul of regulations controlling a State Park natural preserve.
The geotechnical testing project is a joint venture of the Cambria Community Services District and Army Corps of Engineers, as would be the long planned-for desalting plant.
The California Coastal Commission is to hold a hearing Friday afternoon, Dec. 9, in San Francisco to see if a proposal to do some testing on a Cambria beach is consistent with the state’s coastal regulations.
The Army Corps of Engineers is currently trying to get approval from State Parks, the State Lands Commission and the Coastal Commission to perform various scientific tests below the high-tide line near the mouth of Santa Rosa Creek.
The tests are designed to show if a desalting intake system could draw enough salty water from under the shore to supply the plant.
Thursday, the Cambria Community Services District board will hold a hearing on the environmental impact of scientific tests the district and the Army Corps of Engineers have proposed at the mouth of Santa Rosa Creek, tests they say are essential to determining if the site can provide enough water for a desalination plant.
The board will also hear a presentation from the district’s federal lobbyist, Greg Burns, who has been prodding lawmakers to fulfill their expressed intention to put $10.3 million toward the plant that’s now estimated to cost more than $20 million.
The district is paying Burns’ firm for six months’ representation, similar to the amounts paid previously. In prior years, the district had hired other lobbyists.
For the past four years, Cambria’s services district has wanted to test and measure water and sand near the mouth of Santa Rosa Creek, to determine if enough salty water could be drawn from beneath the shore to supply a desalination plant. But the district’s been unable to get permission for those tests from several of the agencies that control the areas.
Such a plant would be located elsewhere, off the beach.
Tom Luster, the commission’s staff environmental scientist, said late Tuesday that the Corps could accept the commission’s decision and focus on another location or project to meet Cambria’s water needs. Or, the Corps could notify the commission that testing will proceed anyway. If that happens, Luster said, the commission could request mediation or file a lawsuit to stop the work.
Josephine Axt, chief of planning for the Corps’ Los Angeles division, said that while pursuing the testing regime further isn’t totally off the table, “it’s unlikely at this point.”
“Going over the head of the Coastal Commission would be a huge deal,” Axt said.
A decision to do that would have to be made at the regional and national level, she said, not just at the Los Angeles division.
Consistency hearings, like the one held last week, take place when a federal agency’s plans trump state law but still must comply with the state’s requirements “to the maximum extent practicable.”
The Corps has tried for about three years to get approval from the commission, State Parks and the State Lands Commission to perform scientific tests along the state natural preserve and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.
The tests would help discover whether a desalination intake system could draw enough salty water from under the ocean floor to supply the plant.
While the tests could have provided important data about the site, Axt said, they were a tiny part of the larger picture. The plant would be expected to provide a drought-proof supplemental source of water for a community that occasionally runs dry.
Corps and district staffers have been working on dual federal and state environmental impact studies for the plant. Those reports and a subsequent public scoping meeting likely will be where the Corps will dedicate its energies and money for the next six months, Axt surmised.
