Regarding Los Osos CSD General Manager Bruce Buel’s response (“I’ll tell you what stinks,� Sept. 30-Oct. 7) to last week’s story on the Hideous Los Osos Sewer by Ron Crawford, Mr. Buel states that “ … treatment facilities located outside of town without amenities would likely cost more than the proposed project.�

According to the Coastal Commission’s staff report, the so-called Andre site could cost $5-6 million more or $1 million less, depending. The “depending� was because both figures were based on guesstimates; the site was never really considered as an alternative, and so real figures were never available.

Also missing from Ron’s original story, no doubt due to space considerations, is the fact that the center-of-town site was chosen by members of LOCAC (Los Osos Community Advisory Council, a group of unelected private citizens who advise the county on land use within the Estero Bay boundaries) in order to use the sewer plant size to limit growth. According to Bob Semonsen, recently appointed to fill a vacancy on the CSD, the original Solutions Group asked, “ … How can we take build-out and land use out of the political process? The quick and easy answer — put it [the sewer plant] on a site where it can never be expanded … ergo, the middle of town.�

It’s doubtful that this information was ever known by the citizens of Los Osos, and since it wasn’t known, it never became part of the political discussion and simply became another hidden agenda. 

Ann Calhoun

Los Osos