News - Local - North Coast

Monday, Jul. 28, 2008

New desal intake spot identified in Cambria

The ground under the Santa Rosa Creek mouth could be a viable source, but more tests needed

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A desalination plant in Cambria could get seawater from under the sand near the mouth of Santa Rosa Creek, preliminary geologic tests show.

Cambria needs a new water source before a 2001 ban on new water hookups can be lifted and to ensure an adequate supply for existing users in a drought.

The district is trying to build a plant that would get its seawater from an underground well, considered environmentally preferable to taking water straight from the ocean.

Briny discharge from the plant would be put into a separate underground well.

The Cambria Community Services District wanted to do testing on the beach two miles north, near the mouth of San Simeon Creek, but county-approved plans to do so were turned back by the state Coastal Commission in December.

“Time ought to be spent working on finding a solution to their issue of desalination—where to locate and how to locate an intake system here,” commission Executive Director Peter Douglas said at the time. “I do think that desalination probably is part of the water future for Cambria. It was just the problem of locating a facility.”

If the district is eventually able to place pipes under the beach at the Santa Rosa Creek mouth, they could carry water for miles to the plant, which could be on district property about a half-mile inland from the mouth of San Simeon Creek, or to the nearby district sewage treatment plant property on the northeast side of Park Hill, off Windsor Boulevard.

Months of study, including tests tracking sound waves underground, turned up a trio of ancient stream channels that have filled with sediment. One is near the mouth of Santa Rosa Creek; the other two are just to the south, west of Shamel Park.

Additional testing is needed to determine if they could be used as routes for taking in and discharging water. In the next testing round, scientists need to sample soils and other materials in ancient stream channels that have filled with deposits of sand, gravel, clay or other materials. District engineer Bob Gresens reported the most recent findings to the district board at a meeting Thursday. He said computer modeling is needed before it’s known if use of the Santa Rosa Creek area is feasible. If it’s not, the district could decide to again pursue the San Simeon Creek location.

Directors and some members of the public, especially those with property they want to build on, welcomed the Santa Rosa Creek results.

Other audience members, however, who had spoken against testing near San Simeon Creek, also oppose the latest idea.

Mahala Burton said she was “dumbfounded, stupefied and confused” by Gresens’ presentation. She said, “We wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars” on researching the San Simeon project — which she called “illegal.”

Rich Davega asked, “Does anyone have a 2008 projection on the (desalination) cost to Cambrians in the coming years and the cost of desal water? Can this community afford the water, and can it afford the plant?”

Gresens said answers to some questions raised at the meeting should be available in time for the district’s Aug. 21 board meeting.