The Sunnyslope County Water District could make a final decision
on its future wastewater plans in the next month-and-a-half,
General Manager Bryan Yamaoka said Friday.
Hollister – The Sunnyslope County Water District could make a final decision on its future wastewater plans in the next month-and-a-half, General Manager Bryan Yamaoka said Friday.
That decision will hinge in part on negotiations with the City of Hollister, Yamaoka said, including discussions scheduled for Monday’s City Council meeting. The Central Coast Regional Quality Control Board, the same state agency that imposed a building moratorium on Hollister in 2002, has ordered Sunnyslope to increase its wastewater capacity.
The district is considering two options – building a new treatment facility or hooking up with the Hollister plant.
“We could go either way,” Yamaoka said.
Sunnyslope can’t meet the state’s January deadline so the district will have to ask for an extension, Yamaoka said.
As always, money is an issue. Sunnyslope officials have said both alternatives would be funded through the sale of bonds, and those bonds would be paid off by increasing rates for Sunnyslope’s 1,200 wastewater customers in Ridgemark Estates, Quail Hollow and Oak Creek.
At Monday’s meeting, the council will decide how much to charge Sunnyslope for connecting to the Hollister plant.
City Manager Clint Quilter said he’s recommending the city adopt a “flow-based” scheme, in which Sunnyslope would pay 5 percent of the treatment plant’s total cost because the district would use 5 percent of the plant’s overall “flow.”
The plant is scheduled to start operating in December 2008, and if it ends up matching the city’s estimated cost of $120 million, Sunnyslope would have to pay a $6 million hook-up fee, Quilter said.
The project won’t increase costs for the district’s 5,200 water customers.
Yamaoka said Sunnyslope already has its own cost estimates and just needs “official numbers” from the city, so the final decision will be based on factors other than cost, Yamaoka said.
“It boils down to recycled water,” he said.
A pipeline of recycled water could be a big benefit to the city, Yamaoka said, because it would reduce costs for watering athletic fields and other uses.
Hollister is ready for either option, Quilter said. The city’s designs assume Sunnyslope might connect to the new plant, and if it does, Hollister’s controversial wastewater rate hikes will be reduced, he said.
Asked if he prefers one alternative, Hollister Councilman Doug Emerson said he doesn’t have “any real bias.” Lower rates would be a plus, Emerson said, but he noted that creating a more complex wastewater system could also lead to problems.
“For Hollister, the benefits have to outweigh the disadvantages, and they probably would,” he said.
Ultimately, it’s Sunnyslope’s decision, Quilter said.
“I agree it probably won’t be a financial decision, but rather where the best place is for water to go,” he said. “I don’t necessarily have the answer to that.”
