Water Worries Call for New Voices

The article about Morro Bay Desalination [“City Gives Up On Desalination” Vol. 2. Issue 16] was very informative, revealing problems heretofore unknown by the residents. The video that accompanies it online was even more revealing.

The video illustrates the recycled water will only be injected in the ground when it is needed to supplement the groundwater to thwart seawater intrusion. That most or all of the costly reverse osmosis filtered and UV treated recyclable water from the WRF will in essence be dumped! This dumped water was supposed to fulfill the EPA “new water” requirement as represented by the city in order to qualify for the $69 million WIFIA [Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act] loan.

The video also belies the popular story the City Council promoted to garner resident support for large rate increases necessary to fund the now $130 million Water Recycling Facility (WRF) that would make Morro Bay’s water future secure by providing potable water from a million gallons of wastewater a day.

We now also learned the City has an agreement with CMC to get emergency Whale Rock water.

So it seems even more viable that a new sewer plant, located next to the Cayucos Toro Creek treatment plant, could make recycled water that would go directly to Whale Rock reservoir for storage.

The article exposes the poor decisions made for the present bankrupting Sewer/Indirect Potable Reuse fantasy that this and the previous city council relentlessly pursued to the exclusion of any other voices.

Let’s fix this: vote Weiss for mayor and Winholtz and Sadowsky for council!

Nancy Bast
Morro Bay

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