Rancho Colina Mobile Home and RV Park owner, Steve McElvaine, stands next to the entrance sign to the parks, which were opened in 1972. Photo by Neil Farrell
Can a neighboring neighborhood be brought into the City of Morro Bay’s water and sewer systems?
That’s what the City will try to determine after the City Council approved moving forward with a feasibility study on extending water and sewer service up Hwy 41 to the Rancho Colina MHP and RV Park.
The City Council recently authorized the Public Works Department to apply for two State grants available for so-called “disadvantaged communities.” Rancho Colina qualifies because most of the residents in the mobile home park are seniors.
According to a report from Public Works Director Greg Kwolek, Rancho Colina is a 69-space mobile home park and a 57-space RV park located at 1045 Atascadero Rd., about a half mile east of the City Limits in SLO County’s jurisdiction.
The parks have their own drinking water and sewer collection and treatment systems, but for years have been under pressure by the Regional Water Quality Control Board due to a change in State regulations dealing with so-called small systems.
The report said Rancho Colina, “has received several wastewater violations notices from the State due to its failing infrastructure. To bring the wastewater system into compliance with their new General Permit for wastewater treatment, the Rancho Colina Wastewater Treatment Facility requires significant and expensive upgrades and repairs.”
Steve McElvaine, who owns Rancho Colina, said his sewer plant works fine but the State is pushing small systems like his to hook up to large municipal systems whenever possible.
Opened in 1972, McElvaine, a former Dist. 2 County Supervisor said that the sewer plant has been in continuous use since it was installed in 1972 and still works fine.
He first proposed hooking into the City’s system some 20-years ago but was rejected, so he’s all aboard with the notion now.
And because of the parks’ special disadvantaged status, he said the City stands to have the State pay for it and potentially other water and sewer projects the City wants to do.
The City’s report from Public Works Director Greg Kwolek said that instead of costly repairs and upgrades, the report said the water board suggested the parks connect to Morro Bay’s systems and they’d help pay for it.
“The State offers financial incentives to larger wastewater systems,” Kwolek said, “who allow smaller systems to consolidate. These incentives take the form of grants to complete other necessary upgrades in the larger system that enable consolidation.”
But this won’t be a simple extension of two pipes. Kwolek said there is more to it. “Staff’s preliminary analysis indicates that to connect Rancho Colina, the City would likely need to complete upgrades to our wastewater system to accommodate the additional sewer flows. The cost of this upgrade could be offset by the financial incentives offered by the State for consolidation with Rancho Colina.”
Those upgrades include slip-lining a sewer main that runs down Atascadero Road and building a new storage tank on top of the hill at Nutmeg Avenue, according to McElvaine, who smiles with the irony that after initially being rejected by the City, bringing Rancho Colina into the system now could result in solving some of the City’s sticky infrastructure issues.
He explained that the State’s water laws were pushing for small separated systems for many years. Then the law was changed and now they’re pushing to consolidate small systems into big ones.
When these small systems found it difficult to pay for what can be very expensive projects, the law was changed again, with millions made available to pay for it. The key was the disadvantaged community designation, as that opened a whole lot of potential money.
He added that it looks like the project could be eligible for some $11 million, which should be far more than needed to hook up the two parks.
He said the beauty of this grant money is if they get it, they could leverage it on potentially more grants.
It’s also a bit funny how things often come full circle. When the City was looking at new locations for its Water Reclamation Facility (new sewer plant) Project, Rancho Colina was one of the sites they studied extensively.
The idea was to move the treatment plant out to the greater Rancho Colina property, which is much bigger than the two parks, hooking up the parks along with it.
But negotiations eventually broke down and the City Council decided to build the new WRF on a hillside above the terminus of South Bay Boulevard, a run of some 3.5 miles and about 300-foot elevation gain, from the old plant down at sea level.
That necessitated costly changes to what was a mostly gravity-fed collection system, with all sewer mains flowing down to the old plant site on Atascadero Road. Instead the City had to install miles of new forced-main piping, added two new lift stations and made changes to existing ones, too.
The final site selection and project changes increased the overall project costs to about $175 million.
No estimated costs were ever released on how much it would have been to build the WRF at Rancho Colina, but at the time the former city manager had stated it might run $14 million more.
The parks’ water system, which draws ground water from wells, reportedly has its own set of issues concerning both quality and quantity.
“Rancho Colina’s groundwater wells have elevated nitrate concentrations,” Kwolek’s report said, “and have nearly run dry during recent droughts, forcing Rancho Colina to truck in water from other wells in the Morro Basin.”
The wells appear to be suffering the same problems as agricultural and residential wells have seen throughout the Morro Valley.
During the last prolonged drought, many wells dried up, and avocado growers, McElvaine included, were forced to import water. Ultimately, many were chose to “stump” (severely trim back) their trees, essentially placing them into a dormant state until the drought broke.
For the most part that move worked and the Morro Valley is again healthy with avocadoes. The water board also has a grant program that could help with the water situation.
“The State,” the City report said, “also offers financial incentives for larger water systems to consolidate in small systems. Staff’s preliminary analysis indicates that to connect City water service and Rancho Colina, the City would likely need to complete upgrades within the existing water system. As with the wastewater example, the cost of this water system upgrade could be offset by financial incentives.”
Here too the mobile home park’s elderly population comes in handy.
“In 2022,” Kwolek reported, “the Regional Water Quality Control Board contacted the City regarding the potential for Rancho Colina to connect to the City’s water and wastewater utilities.
“Since Rancho Colina is classified as a ‘Disadvantaged Community,’ there could be up to $11 million in grant funding available from the CWSRF [Clean Water State Revolving Fund — for the sewer work] and DWSRF programs [Drinking Water State Revolving Fund — for the water] to pay for infrastructure upgrades to the City’s water and wastewater systems and pipelines to connect Rancho Colina.”
McElvaine noted that the City wouldn’t be eligible for these grant programs without the parks.
So how much could it cost? McElvaine said about 20-years ago he brought in someone to do an estimate of what it would cost for them to hook up to the City and the estimate came in at about $300,000.
It would of course be considerably more now, but McElvaine said it shouldn’t be anywhere near $11 million.
The staff was given the Ok to apply to the State for these grants and expects the applications could be finalized by June. From there they would begin “evaluation to assess feasibility of the project.”
Assuming it is feasible, they would then move into a design contract and eventually construction. But there’re no guarantees. It could fall apart just like the negotiations for the sewer treatment plant.
“At any point in the process,” the report said, “the City can opt to withdraw from this project.”
Another possibility is that the City could also seek to extend the City Limits and annex Rancho Colina bringing some additional property taxes into the City coffers. McElvaine said that also makes good sense.
Also, the RV park would then send the City’s 10% transient occupancy taxes from the RV Park side of Rancho Colina to the City instead of the current 9% TOT, which gets sent to the County.
However, that could be an issue for the County, which would have to agree to give up its share of those taxes.
Annexing Rancho Colina, which already gets City fire/emergency medical and police services (when they call 911, dispatch sends Morro Bay’s fire and police units), would have to be done through the Local Agency Formation Commission or LAFCo.
Once again, that is not a new concept for McElvaine, who said many years ago he asked LAFCo., about being annexed into the City. At that time, they were against it because of the need to “leapfrog” over another large property, the Righetti Ranch, which sits between the Rancho Colina property and the City Limits.
He is not opposed to being annexed and acknowledges the increased taxes it would bring to the City.
