A long-planned water resiliency project in South County now hangs in the balance after the city of Arroyo Grande made a formal demand to Pismo Beach and Grover Beach to amend a shared operating agreement threatening to otherwise withdraw from the project. The Arroyo Grande City Council voted unanimously at its April 13 meeting to send the demand letter to its partner cities on Central Coast Blue, a wastewater project that seeks to balance the Santa Maria Valley Groundwater Basin, a shared regional water source. click to enlarge File Photo By Aidan McGloin
HIGH STAKES Water Systems Consulting Engineer Dan Heimel leads a 2019 tour of a water recycling facility. The Central Coast Blue project would inject treated wastewater into the Santa Maria Valley Groundwater Basin.
click to enlarge Image From Grover Beach Staff Report
A NEW VISION Grover Beach plans to demolish an existing gazebo at Ramona Garden Park and replace it with fitness and educational space, along with the addition of a new playground and enhanced amphitheater. At a meeting on March 22, Grover Beach City Council approved the city s capital improvement program for fiscal years 2022-26, a plan that outlines a schedule for expenditures and projects estimated to cost $50,000 or more that could be completed in the next four years. The plan includes roughly 22 projects proposed for fiscal year 2022, including improvements to the police station, City Hall, street and storm drain maintenance, and water main upgrades.
I don t know what s worse, a bunch of
Grover Beachers saying homeless people shouldn t get to stay at the city park when those same residents pitched a gigantic fit in 2019 over a facility that could have actually provided homeless services. click to enlarge I m in shock that the
Cambria Community Services District is
still talking about the name of the emergency water facility turned permanent pain in the ass that has yet to provide a single drop of water to residents. Is it an emergency drought facility or one that augments Cambria s water supply on a regular basis? That, my dear Shredder lovers, depends on who you ask.
The Arroyo Grande City Council voted on March 23 that it will not sign a multi-city agreement with Grover Beach and Pismo Beach to move forward on the Central Coast Blue water project unless it includes a local hire provision setting up a standoff between the three cities. While Pismo s and Grover s city councils both signed the operating agreement and approved the recycled wastewater project s environmental impact report, Arroyo Grande council members took issue with its lack of commitment to a community workforce agreement, which would guarantee that local skilled workers are hired for the estimated $50 million project. click to enlarge
Cover Design by Alex Zuniga Everybody knows that the COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest story of 2020, with social and political tensions coming in a very close second and almost certainly intertwined with the pandemic. Although California also had another record fire season in 2020, SLO County thankfully didn t. The happiest county on the California coast made national news several times this past year with SLO County Sheriff Ian Parkinson s and District Attorney Dan Dow s stance against Black Lives Matter protesters and COVID-19 regulations, the arrest and prosecution of protest leader Tianna Arata, and COVID-19 positive case numbers taking up the bulk of that national attention. Local residents seemed to take issue with everything facing each other in the streets with protests and anti-protests, bickering online in divergent Facebook groups and catty Instagram stories, shouting about COVID