It’s been a long time coming but Los Osos Community Services District’s new drinking water well is finally done and ready to pump.
Called the “Program C Well,” the new water well is located at the south side of Los Osos Valley Road near the end of South Bay Boulevard on Bay Oaks.
According to a report from the LOCSD staff, “On Jan. 27, the project contractor, consultants and staff were able to complete the startup of the Bay Oaks well. All systems are operational and the permit from the Division of Drinking Water has been received.”
The LOCSD has been working on the new well, which taps the upper ground water aquifer, since 2018. It involved much study, environmental review, and installation of a significant water line to deliver the water to the system.
“The well will add operational flexibility to the aging water production and distribution system,” the report said. “Many thanks to all the people that have worked diligently on this project over the years.”
Digging the new well is part of a management plan the LOCSD, Golden State Water Co., S&T Mutual, and SLO County put together following a judge’s order directing the water purveyors to work together to manage the groundwater basin, Los Osos’ sole source of drinking water.
That court order came during the height of the Los Osos Sewer Wars, after a Recall Election flipped the board majority to the “Move the Sewer” folks, which in turn halted a community-wide sewer project shortly after it had broken ground in 2005.
That led to millions in fines being imposed by the Regional Water Quality Control Board, the defaulting of a State Revolving Fund loan, bankruptcy for the LOCSD and pretty much utter chaos in the politics of a massive sewer project.
Eventually through an act of the State Legislature control of the sewer project was handed back to the County, which pushed it through and completed it in 2016.
Though not directly sewer related, the basin management played out during this time and resulted in formation of the Basin Management Committee. From that body came the Basin Management Plan that is seeking to better utilize the available ground water and try to lessen seawater intrusion that has been happening mainly along the corridor from Sweet Springs east nearly all the way to Palisades Avenue.
Drilling new, relatively shallow water wells on the east side of town away from the seawater intrusion is a big part of that.
For decades, and continuing today, the town’s drinking water has been drawn from the lower aquifer, in wells as much as 800 feet deep.
Until 2016, when the sewer started up, every home and business in town utilized a septic system that discharged the primary-treated effluent into leach fields, essentially taking water from deep down, running it through homes and businesses and disposing of it — partially treated — into the upper aquifer via the leach fields.
So, while seawater has been intruding into the lower basin, the thinking is to tap the upper basin to lessen the pumping from below.
Also, the LOCSD is in the process of potentially snaking a pipeline down South Bay Boulevard to Hwy 1 and connecting with the Chorro Valley Pipeline that delivers fully treated drinking water from the State Water Project to Morro Bay.
At this time, the LOCSD is looking at bringing 200-acre feet a year to supplement the groundwater and further lessen pumping the over drafted basin.
