The reaction to Heal the Ocean’s April 19, 2022, letter to the editor of the Montecito Journal regarding Bob Hazard’s piece “Should the Montecito Water and Sanitary Districts Consolidate?” was swift: At a joint meeting of the Montecito Water and Sanitary districts on Wednesday, April 27, 2022, Mr. Hazard said my piece was an “old” argument, but also that the districts needed to step up their public relations work, that Heal the Ocean’s community outreach could impact their reputations and/or whatever it is they are trying to accomplish.
To get the argument into present-day conversation, Heal the Ocean now reports to the public that during the joint meeting on that Wednesday, the boards of both districts received preliminary results of a $400,000 study by Carollo outlining options for increasing water supply to Montecito. Among those options being studied – and this is current:
• Building of infrastructure in Montecito for Non-Potable Reuse (NPR) in Montecito: purple pipes for irrigation water;
• Indirect Potable Reuse (IPR) in Carpinteria: sending Montecito wastewater to Carpinteria for processing and injection into the Carpinteria groundwater basin for settling/purification, then piping it back up to Montecito for customer use;
• Direct Potable Reuse (DPR) in Montecito: purifying wastewater at the Montecito Sanitary facility to drinking water standards, and piping it into the Montecito Water District water supply;
• Direct Potable Reuse (DPR) in Santa Barbara: Montecito Sanitary's wastewater being sent to the City of Santa Barbara’s El Estero treatment plant, and returning as a water supply for Montecito.
Into this discussion — and I’m not making this up — is the idea for getting Montecito San's wastewater to Carpinteria via a floating wastewater line in the ocean from Montecito to Carpinteria. Yes, this was brought up in the meeting.