The Meetings Were Packed!

Especially the first one, standing room only!

Wednesday, February 26, the County had two Town Hall-type meetings at the Middle School to give Los Osos an update on the wastewater project. I went to both of them. There was a ton of information. Here is a condensed version of information imparted in no particular order:

• 39 miles of pipe installed so far

• 3,3000 laterals in place so far

• 2016 the treatment plant will be done and the laterals will begin to be hooked up to the houses in phases

•Notices will be sent to each property; the speed of which these are sent will be adjusted as the hook-ups progress, but the total time will be one year

• 2017 all laterals will be connected (let the flushing begin!)

• Lateral connections require a plumbing permit and the County intends to streamline the process

• Your licensed contractor, if you have one, can pull the permit

• There will be an online permit you can do yourself

• Up to the BOS to approve or not, but John Waddell will present a plan to charge the normal plumbing permit costs to the project

• 2014 the roads will begin to be resurfaced

• The project got $21,542, 407 in grants

• The money you pay for your share shows up on your tax bill, but the County will set up some sort of option to pay monthly

• Michelle Houser has taken another job (gone today, Friday February 28) but her E-mail will still contact the County for questions needing answering

• Late 2014 South Bay Boulevard will be repaved

• Sludge will most likely go to the Santa Maria facility

• Los Osos Valley Road will be dug up again; PG&E is burying the utility lines from South Bay Boulevard to Los osos Creek

• Sewer service charges look to be 1¢ per gallon on average for an average cost of $15/mo.

• There will be options for low-income people to help pay the sewer costs; funds from USDA, MBNEP, CDBG, the Community Foundation, more information to come out, but it will work like the phone company or the electric company discounts

• The County is working with Assemblyman Katcho Achadjian for a State program to be brought back that allowed low-income people to defer their property tax until the property is sold

• The County will reapply to the State Water Board to lower the interest rate on the SRF loan next year and to extend the payment time from 30 years to 40 years to make for lower payments

• SLO Green Build is working on plans to instruct people on how to reuse their septic tanks to capture and reuse rainwater and graywater

• There have been 18 sites completed in the program to improve drainage, there are 2 or 3 large sites left to improve

• Future road improvements include: Spot Road Rehabilitation done by County crews to remove and replace small areas that are degraded; Pavement Overlay of primary roads where 11/2 to 2" of asphalt is laid down; Microsurfacing of neighborhood street where a durable surface treatment the same as is used in San Luis to smooth out the roads

• Late 2015 - 2016 the major road work will be done

• Excess soil will be removed by contractors on the road shoulders before they get their final check, but the compaction from before, done over many years, will take time to return

• The 350 homes that needed grinder pumps have been notified

• Future building on vacant lots cannot occur until (1) The water shortage is solved; (2) The Habitat Conservation Plan is approved by U.S. Fish & Wildlife; (3) The Local Coastal permit needs to be updated which requires an EIR and approval from the California Coastal Commission (read about this and take the survey at this link)

• If the vacant lots get the go-ahead, there will be another Assessment District created so that they can pay their share of the sewer and there may be additional costs for water and their share of the Habitat Conservation Plan

And there is most of it. The Powerpoint presentation will be posted shortly on the LOWWP site and the video by AGP should run on Channel 20 in the near future.