At Tuesday night's Pismo Beach City Council meeting, the council passed two resolutions that will allow the city to apply for state-funded loans to fund the Central Coast Blue Project.
The project is intended to create a new water supply for the Five Cities community.
Last year, Arroyo Grande and Grover Beach pulled out of the project. Now as the only city involved, Pismo Beach is exploring funding options.
"If we can't afford the project, it's hard to move forward," said Jorge Garcia, the Pismo Beach city manager.
After the city council meeting on Tuesday, funding may become easier.
"What we are looking to do is apply for a state-revolving fund loan. It's advantageous financing, whereas our existing loan that we can get from the federal government through an EPA loan, otherwise known as WIFIA, would be north of 6% interest," Garcia said.
He adds that interest for the prospective state loan would be 1.8% to 1.9%.
Four people spoke out about the project during the council meeting, with none of them wanting it to happen.
"We don't want our streets ripped up, we don't want a sewer plant in our town to compensate Pismo that has 100,000 people on a busy weekend where we don't have that. We don't even need the water," said Brenda Auer, one of the speakers.
She spoke on behalf of residents in Grover Beach, where the proposed water purification facility would be built.
She and the others told the council that if the project should move forward, the city needs to do a better job with outreach to the impacted areas.
"The neighborhoods don't know what's happening. They haven't been informed. Grover people do not want it. Your constituents need to know the project is not in Pismo Beach. It's in your neighbors, your poorer neighbors, in their neighborhoods," said another Grover Beach resident.
"This project is mainly for Pismo Beach, which is fine, but the infrastructure is going into the city of Grover and Oceano. So the outreach to those cities has not been completed. They don't really know that there's going to be a potential wastewater treatment plant in their backyard," said one public commenter.
Responding to the concerns, Garcia said the project is still only in the planning stages.
"The original project proposed for Central Coast Blue was a 1,000 acre feat of annual production. We are looking at a project that is 300-acre feat from a scaled-down project. So right now, as we are considering available options, the first thing that we have to evaluate is financial feasibility," said Garcia.
While the resolutions passed at Tuesday night's city council meeting, it does not mean the project is moving forward.
The city council will have to meet and discuss any next steps that may be taken.
