Nacimiento pipeline foes are floundering
Monday October 8th, 2007 - 10:57:56 am
Dan Reddell Email
Monday, Oct 8, 2007
Posted on Mon, Oct. 08, 2007
Foes of jump in water rates due to Nacimiento Pipeline are foundering
Sally Connell
A political effort to overturn water rate increases linked to the Nacimiento Water Project has not caught fire yet in San Luis Obispo, and the Paso Robles City Council last week made moot a looming ballot measure on the same issue.
Meanwhile, pipeline construction is expected to start with a groundbreaking near the Nacimiento Lake Dam on Oct. 25.
“The peak of construction will be in 2008 and 2009,” said Nacimiento project Manager John Hollenbeck. “That’s when people will start to see large flatbed trucks with pipe on them, with steel on them, with concrete.”
There are five communities committed by a contract signed in 2004 to receiving water from the $178 million, 45-mile pipeline: Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo, Atascadero, Templeton and Cayucos.
The Paso Robles City Council last week voted to do away with a flat fee increase to pay for the pipeline, saying it will link rate increases to water usage instead. A measure to undo the flat rate was headed to a city vote before the council action, but it will not appear now.
In San Luis Obispo, resident Terry Mohan said he has collected 200 of the 2,830 signatures he needs to qualify a measure for the ballot that could overturn city water rate increases tied to its share of the Nacimiento pipeline.
The City Council approved water rate increases up to 13 percent this year, and double-digit water rate increases are anticipated through 2012, in part to pay for the pipeline.
Mohan has until February to circulate the petitions, and he believes he will be successful, even though he is off to a slow start because he took a break from the effort in September.
Mohan believes the Nacimiento Water Project is being promoted by development and business interests in the city, because more water will allow the city to grow.
His proposed initiative would roll back water rates to levels before the Nacimiento project was factored into costs.
City Council members and other city officials have countered that San Luis Obispo needs a third reliable major water source to get through drought years and provide for moderate growth. The two major sources of the city’s water are Whale Rock Reservoir near Cayucos and the Salinas Reservoir near Santa Margarita.
Local legal experts and other officials supporting the pipeline say each community must pay its share of the cost, regardless of what happens politically at the local level.
Bonds have been sold and contracts signed, they stress. All five communities let a recent “opt out” period expire that would have allowed them to get out of the project.
“We are on the hook,” said San Luis Obispo City Attorney Jonathan Lowell. “The bonds have been sold. We’re contractually obligated to honor the terms of the bonds as well as the agreement.”
He said that Mohan’s initiative will not affect any of the city’s contractual obligations. If it passed and withstood court challenge, it would only affect how the city comes up with the money.
Warren Jensen, chief deputy county counsel, said the municipalities must pay the bill on the pipeline project being managed by the San Luis Obispo County Flood Control and Conservation District. The district is run by the county Board of Supervisors, and the county is managing the pipeline project because it involves multiple agencies.
“San Luis city is one of the participants. They signed documents committing them to make these payments,” Jensen said.
San Luis Obispo as a community has rejected a large water source twice before, in the case of a pipeline that now carries state water to the region and southward. State water was rejected by city voters in a nonbinding advisory vote in 1991 and a binding vote in 1992.
Dave Garth, president of the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce, said the argument advanced by state water opponents at that time was that Nacimiento water was the preferable alternative.
“I think the biggest thing that is different is that state water became a symbolic issue for most of the environmental groups, and there was very organized opposition,” Garth said. “I don’t think that’s the case this time.”
The chamber board is opposing Mohan’s ballot measure. Garth has said the drought of the late 1980s was devastating for the city.
San Luis Obispo also ran into environmental concerns and North County opposition when it proposed raising the spillway at the Salinas Reservoir in the late 1990s to increase its water supply.

© 2007 San Luis Obispo Tribune and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
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