This SLO County town needs more water. Could a new pipeline be the answer?
The Los Osos Community Services District is looking for a way to import a hot commodity: water.
The small San Luis Obispo County community’s water source, an underground aquifer, has long been overpumped and is polluted from farming nitrates and intruding seawater.
Years-long droughts haven’t helped, forcing the community’s 16,000 residents to cut back on watering plants and install water-smart appliances. Some have fought fiercely against any new developments that could tax already stressed resources.
“We need water resiliency. We need a supplemental water source,” said the district’s general manager, Ron Munds. “Our engineer looked into a lot of other water sources and state water just seemed to be the best option.”
Right now, the Los Osos Community Services District is considering building a pipeline to connect to the Chorro Valley pipeline.
Carrying water from the State Water Project, the Chorro Valley pipeline connects to the coastal branch of the California Aqueduct near Cuesta Ridge north of San Luis Obispo and travels 12.5 miles to Morro Bay.
Los Osos’s pipeline could connect to the Chorro Valley pipeline at South Bay Boulevard near Highway 1 and run about 2.5 miles along the boulevard to Santa Ysabel Avenue, according to Munds.
Should it get approved, the pipeline could provide Los Osos with about 200 acre-feet of water annually to help refill its troubled underground aquifer. An acre foot of water is about 325,851 gallons of water, or, enough water to cover a football field in one foot of water.
The pipeline would likely cost upwards of $8 million to design and construct, according to Munds.
Because Los Osos didn’t help pay for the initial construction and upsizing of the Chorro Valley pipeline in the 1990s, that cost doesn’t include possible retroactive charges from the San Luis Obispo County Flood Control and Water Conservation District for such charges.
Munds said he hopes the pipeline could be constructed by the end of 2025.
How can Los Osos bring in more water?
Getting water to a community isn’t as simple as building a pipeline and turning some nobs.
There are complex and convoluted systems and rules in place that govern how much water communities can get, what happens to the unused water and where the water comes from.
Los Osos, Morro Bay and the county will need to have discussions to figure out exactly how transporting the water will work.
“We haven’t had another connection to this pipeline,” said Kate Ballantyne, San Luis Obispo County’s deputy director of public works. “And I don’t know if Los Osos would need to be a subcontractor for the State Water Project.”
“It really depends on how Los Osos approaches this,” said Greg Kwolek, Morro Bay’s public works director.
Could Los Osos become a State Water Project subcontractor?
The Los Osos Community Services District’s initial idea is to connect to the Chorro Valley pipeline and receive 200 acre-feet of state water per year to offset its groundwater pumping.
San Luis Obispo County is a State Water Project contractor. It is allocated about 25,000 acre-feet of water per year.
The county then has 11 entities as subcontractors including Avila Beach, Oceano, Shandon, California Men’s Colony, Cuesta College, San Luis Coastal Unified School District, and the cities of Morro Bay and Pismo Beach. The 11 entities are allocated a total of 4,830 acre-feet of state water per year.
The 14,463 acre-feet of state water allocation is considered excess and is stored in San Luis Reservoir. Some of the excess can be sold or stored for drought years, among other things.
“It’s a (San Luis Obispo County) Board of Supervisors priority to maximize our state water in the county,” Ballantyne said. “We’re always exploring how to get more state water into SLO County to SLO County residents.”
Los Osos could negotiate with the county to receive some of that excess allocation, Ballantyne said.
Alternatively, the community services district could negotiate with Morro Bay to receive the excess state water the city doesn’t use, she added.
Morro Bay is allocated 1,313 acre-feet of water each year. It typically uses about 1,000 acre-feet.
There are other options, Kwolek said.
“Maybe Los Osos connects to our system and we run a recycled water pipeline to Los Osos,” he said. “That would mean selling our water.”
Munds said he’s looking forward to engaging the city of Morro Bay and the county in the political processes to come.
“We’re still on the front end of this,” he said, “but we know we need more water resiliency, so now’s the time to get it done.”
