The Los Osos Community Services District is ready to go out for bids on a project to rehabilitate two old CSD drinking water wells and turn them into seawater intrusion monitoring sites.
Part of the judgment that led to the formation of the Groundwater Basin Management Plan, the new monitoring wells are needed to keep an eye on the level of seawater intrusion into the groundwater basin, believed caused by over-pumping of the other wells. The seawater intrusion has mostly been found along the Los Osos Valley Road corridor through town, reaching from the edge of the bay inland nearly to Palisades Avenue.
That’s where one of the two monitoring wells is located, and the other is out on LOVR in the same general vicinity.
Acting in conjunction with the Basin Management Committee (BMC), the CSD was able to get a commitment for a $75,000 grant from The Bay Foundation, a non-profit group responsible for getting the Morro Bay Estuary included in the National Estuary Program and in the formation of the Morro Bay National Estuary Program, a federal agency that monitors the health of the estuary.
In order to get the grant, the CSD report on the item said, they had to act fast and agree to become the lead agency for the projects.
The two rehabilitation projects are expected to cost some $100,000. The CSD has already hired a contractor, Cleath-Harris Geologists, for $25,000 for design and project management services.
The CSD plans to hold a bid opening on Nov. 1.
