BOS Agenda 1-5-2016 - The Los Osos Items

The two items below have the links to their relevant support documents. The road repairs were a result of the sewer project; and the groundwater basin item relates to sewers due to the recycled water going back into the basin. 

Consent Agenda - Public Works Items: 

13. Submittal of a resolution authorizing execution of notice of completion and acceptance for the construction of the FY 2014 Asphalt Overlay, Various Roads in Los Osos.District 2. (The money for this came out of the County's road fund,"This is a multi-year project budgeted in the Road Fund at $4,044,988 WBS 300519." 

14. Submittal of an Initial Notification of Intent to the California Department of WaterResources (DWR) to explore a boundary modification for the Los Osos GroundwaterBasin. District 2. 

On #14, the statement from the staff report most relevant to Los Osian pocketbooks is:

Costs associated with submittal of this initial notification to DWR and engagement with Basin users are within the Flood Control District’s FY 2015-16 budget. We will return to your Board at a future date if any further action is necessary. HOWEVER, we will be paying our share back once the respective boards making up the Basin Plan Committee finds out the cost and gets each board's approval to pay it. 

The last time the basin boundaries were looked at was 2003. New information delineates the basin differently. When you look at the map of this, there looks to be a confusion of the meaning of the word "basin." The DWR lines seem to outline a watershed. But when you drive down the valley, farmers are watering crops. Where does that water come from? Has any of those non-Los Osos water supplies been studied and are the farmers having water issues too? 

I hope this all goes smoothly and we don't get another awful delay as we did by stopping the 2005 sewer. The water supply has gone downhill since then due to no water traveling back to the lower aquifer (which is a hit down the road actually - it takes 20-30 years to get the water down to the lower aquifer, our main water supply, from the giant Broderson leach field). The CSD's bankruptcy due to stopping the sewer meant that there was no money for water conservation measures that would have helped. Also, with no sewer project, one wonders what the CSD could have done as they do not serve water to Golden State customers anyway. They could not make those people conserve. Without the sewer nexus, only half measures could have been done. Really, the $29 million we are paying to have this thing out of town is the least of the problems. The elephant-sized problem is the cost of doing nothing to save our basin for so many, many years. The delay caused not just the sewer costs to go up, but our water supply "fixes" as well.