Central Coast Blue, Pismo Beach’s water recycling project, is moving forward after the City Council voted Tuesday to approve an almost $40 million contract to build the facility.
The planned purification facility will take water already processed at a wastewater treatment plant, clean it further, and then inject it back into the Santa Maria Groundwater Basin.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Pismo Beach City Manager Jorge Garcia said the project isn’t motivated by growth, but by the vulnerability of the city’s current water supply.
“If we did not have challenges to Lopez water, to state water, to groundwater, we would not have a need for this project,” Garcia said. “But the reality is, we do.”
Pismo Beach will now pay PERC Water Corporation $39.8 million to design and build the facility. The company will start construction in June of next year. Because of technical restraints, the facility’s site will be located in Grover Beach.
City Council Member Scott Newton said he didn’t want to support the project, but felt he had to because of recent droughts and litigation over Lopez Lake.
“The only thing that makes it palatable is the fact that $35 million of it is coming in grants,” Newton said.
Central Coast Blue as a concept has been in development for at least ten years. Grover Beach and Arroyo Grande had originally signed onto a larger version of the project, but left due to rising costs.
