The Los Osos Basin Management Committee has completed a key study on the water supply and sent it off to the State Water Board.
Community Services District General Manager Ron Munds reported to the LOCSD Board the “Final Draft of the Los Osos Water Recycling Funding Program Study Supply Alternatives Analysis needed to be submitted to the State Water Resources Control Board,” and they had met a Nov. 15 deadline.
He noted that they had already gotten a time extension to address the numerous comments received on the Draft Plan.
In essence, the study looked at all beneficial ways the town could use the treated effluent coming from the County’s Water Recycling Facility (sewer treatment plant), and several ways to “acquire new water.”
“The top alternative identified,” the report said, “was the Resiliency Intertie project along South Bay Boulevard to connect with the State Water pipeline at Highway 1 in Morro Bay, which is currently in the design phase post environmental review. The second alternative as upper aquifer de-nitrification, as occasionally utilized by Golden State Water Company at their Rosina well.”
That intertie pipeline would snake a drinking water line down South Bay Boulevard and connect with the Chorro Valley Pipeline, the pipe that delivers State Water Project fully treated drinking water to Morro Bay. The idea is to bring some 200-acre feet a year to Los Osos to lessen pressure on the limited groundwater supply.
The BMC also approved its 2026 budget of some $361,000, which is up from $341,000 budgeted last year.
The Basin Management Committee is made up of the town’s three water purveyors — the LOCSD, Golden State Water and S&T Mutual Water Co., plus SLO County. It was formed after a court order was handed down compelling the companies to work together to manage the groundwater basin, Los Osos’ only source of drinking water and to address severe seawater intrusion into the basin due to over-pumping.
The BMC developed a management plan with a laundry list of projects designed to lessen the pumping of the lower aquifer and included things like drilling new wells far away from the seawater intrusion and tapping the upper aquifer where the town’s wastewater from thousands of septic systems was disposed of for decades before the community sewer was completed.
The BMC had also sent a letter to County Supervisors urging them to set Los Osos’ new growth rate at 0%. However, Supervisors went with the staff’s recommendation and set the annual growth rate at 0.4%.
The recommendation came after a reworked model of the water usage concluded that a previous study showing the water supply could now handle some growth were incorrect, and that the groundwater continues to be over-drafted, a position supported by many residents who continue to appeal all projects approved by the County that could increase water usage.
