By Neil Farrell ~
Morro Bay City leaders will contemplate abandoning their preferred site for a new sewer treatment plant, going back to a previous site that they dropped out of contention last year.
The agenda for a Feb. 9 joint meeting with the Water Reclamation Facility Citizens Advisory Council or WRFCAC and City Council, has but one item, an update to a 2014 report that had recommended the Rancho Colina property over Righetti Ranch.
Both properties are on Hwy 41 adjacent to each other, with Righetti Ranch being west of Rancho Colina.
Now, “Staff recommends the City Council and WRFCAC review an updated report that updates a May 2014 report comparing the Rancho Colina and Righetti sites as possible locations for a new WRF in the Morro Valley. Based on changed circumstances and new information described in the updated report, staff recommends the Righetti site as the preferred location for the WRF.”
Righetti Ranch has been on the short list since 2012 when the Coastal Commission staff asked commissioners to order the City and Cayucos Sanitary District to build on that property.
Initially, Righetti was the targeted site but after an appraisal of the property, which has been for sale for a long time, came in too far under the asking price; it was dropped in favor of Rancho Colina, which was said to have a willing seller.
But over the course of more than a year’s worth of talks with Rancho Colina owner, Steve McElvaine, the negotiations have apparently finally soured.
The staff report by John Rickenbach, the project deputy program manager and a city consultant, reads: “Specifically, the conditions that have changed include the following:
• The Rancho Colina property owner now wishes to limit WRF-related development to a less favorable 8-acre portion of the property not previously investigated in the May 2014 report;
• The property owner does not want any City facilities other than those related to the WRF and possibly the City Water Treatment Plant developed there, including a corporation-yard;
• Subsequent geotechnical investigation of the 8+/- acre portion of the property reveals shallow rock and steep slopes that would add substantial earthwork cost to the development of a WRF at that location as compared to the original location on the property;
• The neighboring Righetti property has been offered for sale, and the City has entered into an MOU under which it could acquire the entire Righetti property to help meet other City goals in addition to siting a new WRF.”
Initially, the City approached McElvaine about buying about 5 acres, increasing greatly after deciding it wanted to move the City incorporation yard, too, reaching nearly 20 acres. The City also wanted property that McElvaine has said is the only flat land he owns.
The item wouldn’t appear to call an actual end to Rancho Colina option, however. “It should be noted, however, recent technical investigations on both sites found both sites are suitable for a new WRF, and neither site is fatally flawed with respect to biological resources, cultural resources, and geotechnical considerations.”
The City is asttempting to build a new sewer treatment plant and a water treatment facility that would clean the wastewater to an advanced level that could some day be reused for drinking water, or at least to replenish the groundwater supplies in the Morro Creek aquifer.
So if Righetti is chosen as the new preferred site, that would mean that the City will have gone from a site adjacent to the current plant on Atascadero Road, out to Righetti Ranch, then Rancho Colina, and back to Righetti again, over the roughly 10 years it has been pursuing a new plant.
