Despite backlash from concerned neighbors, Moulton Niguel Water District on Friday, July 13 agreed to move forward with its projected $32 million plan to construct an operations center and site consolidation project at the district’s current location at La Paz Road in Laguna Niguel.
As part of the district’s $300 million, long-range financial plan, this project is a multi-structure overhaul of the 50-year-old, 10-acre site.
The Moulton Niguel Water District provides water, recycled water and wastewater treatment services to more than 170,000 south Orange County residents — from Mission Viejo to Dana Point — and has only had minor improvements since its mid-1960s inception when the facility was initially built as a wastewater treatment plant.
Yet plans for improvement have been stalled for almost two years largely due to stakeholder concerns — costing the district an additional $5 million, director of engineering at environmental consulting firm LSA Associates, Inc. Rod Woods said.
Residents cite concerns such as light pollution, noise, view impacts, increased traffic and the removal of grass, fields and ponds that were once home to many animals. Residents are also questioning the validity of environmental analyses used to approve the project.
“Do we do the project? Or do we not do the project? We believe we’ve gotten past that,” said Joone Lopez, general manager at the water district. “The conversation really centers around what can we do to make the experience and the aesthetics and just everything better.”
The item discussed Friday was the approval of an Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration to satisfy the environmental analysis for the proposed operations center, which the board unanimously approved despite half of the 30 attendees speaking against the action.
Fourteen residents spoke in five-minute intervals at the meeting. Two were in favor of the resolution; one, 30-year Laguna Hills resident Lynn Hughes, noted how impressed she has been with the district’s sincerity throughout the process and deemed it to be a good neighbor.
Others told stories of loud, midnight-hour bangs that interrupted their sleep and persisted throughout the workday, essentially “evicting them from their own backyards.” Others noted rising air conditioning bills as a result of having to close their windows due to unsettled dust from the mostly asphalt worksite.
“Our ask today is that you do not approve this document,” said attorney Kevin Johnson, representing Ridgefield Homeowners Association, a neighbor to the La Paz Road site.
He called the sound levels posited within the project’s construction plan — 80 decibels, six days a week, excluding Sunday, for 18 months — “simply unacceptable” and essentially “functional constructive eviction” before moving on to an account of the site’s “remarkable history of contamination” from past gasoline leaks.
Johnson presented an email sent to LSA Assistant General Manager Matt Collings on July 12 in which registered geologist Michael Davis stated the project’s credentials so far rely on “erroneous information.” He called into question the handling of benzene detection recorded in a 1993 County of Orange Agency Document Review, where officials excavated the contaminated soil, moved the soil around and aerated until it “appeared to be free of contamination” and was “non-detect for contamination.”
He stated that this detection was cause for testing for probable carcinogenic compound MTBE, which should have been conducted before the soil was moved to fill low surface area, and may be further disturbed during the course of the proposed development.
“We have presented to you evidence from experts,” Johnson said. “The law says if we put expert opinion before you … if there’s a reasonable debate, then you have to do an (Environmental Impact Report).”
The project is in its final steps of processing state statute CEQA, or California Environmental Quality Act, which requires state and local agencies to identify the significant environmental impacts of their actions and to avoid or mitigate those impacts, if feasible, according the California Natural Resources Agency.
According to a staff report, the CEQA found that the proposed project would not result in any significant and unavoidable environmental impacts.
LSA entered an agreement with the water district in December 2015 and has hosted 20-plus community meetings and 25-plus public board meetings over the past three years, according to LSA’s PowerPoint presentation during the meeting.
Additionally, the district allotted a 15-day extension for resident comments during public review period.
More than two-dozen comments on file from residents were incorporated into the project plan. Some considerations included grading revisions to reduce building height in an attempt to maintain privacy of the site’s immediate neighbors, as well as the implementation of “pull through” parking during construction to avoid usage of backup alarms on work trucks.
But residents said it’s not enough.
One noted that the site is such an “eyesore” she removed her third-story balcony.
“You as board members should have known, should have forecasted that this was not an appropriate location for you,” Kathleen Spalione, a 31-year neighbor to the district in Laguna Niguel, said, criticizing the lack of concern she’s witnessed. “You knew the land was going fast in south Orange County –– you should have perceived that. You could not control (urbanization), but you could have controlled your operation and moved it out before it got to this point.”
Spalione asked district board president Donald Froelich where he was when material bins that sound like “boulders being thrown into trash cans” were installed or when the wildlife of the large, on-site pond were left to fend for themselves. The board ceased filling the pond in September 2014, after Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency due to drought conditions.
Linda Kaan, a Laguna Hills resident for 27 years and Ridgefield HOA director, recalled a previous project in which the water district failed to follow through on re-establishing landscaping due to budget cuts.
“You guys don’t know this — but you can drive through our neighborhood and find a little wandering egret, looking for (the pond), not knowing where to go,” Kaan said. “There have been irreversible environmental impacts — I know we’re way past that.”
As part of the action, Lopez added meetings with stakeholders will continue until after construction has concluded.
“We will continue to be available to you one on one for as long as it is necessary,” she told residents. “We have that commitment.”
Features entail the construction of a two-story building and two one-story buildings, demolition of two existing buildings, installation of a traffic signal at Gordon Road and Moulton Parkway, expansions and relocation of fuel dispensers and storage tanks and the renovation of existing facilities. The project is designed to have a campus-like aesthetic.
In addition to given long-term wear and tear, a needs assessment noted that the current facility does not meet current building code requirements such as fire sprinklers and ADA compliance.
“I do understand the concern that the residents have,” Director Duane Cave said, before stating his intentions to approve the resolution. “But I think that once the project is complete, I think it is going to be better for everyone involved than it is today.”