First Paradise sewer meeting set for Monday
The first steps toward getting a sewer within Paradise will begin Monday. That’s when the first time that the Sewer Regionalization Project Advisory Committee will meet. According to the town of Paradise, the committee’s purpose is to monitor the progress of the town’s environmental impact report and the work of the town of Paradise and city of Chico’s Cooperative Work Agreement.
According to a Friday press release, the public’s participation in the EIR process will happen separately but in parallel with the committee’s work. On the agenda for the first meeting is the discussion of the project background
and role of the committee moving forward concurrent to the town’s environmental impact report. Paradise Mayor Steve Crowder and Vice Mayor Jody Jones, along with and Chico Mayor Andrew Coolidge and Vice Mayor Kasey Reynolds were appointed to the committee which is hosted and facilitated by the State Water Resources Control Board.
The Paradise Sewer Project is part of the LongTerm Community Recovery Plan but has also been studied for more than 50 years. A proposed sewer in the early 1990s led to a recall of the Paradise Town Council. After the Camp Fire, Paradise lost 83% of its population and 90% of its housing stock, and Chico’s population has grown by 20%. According to a joint press release, despite that spike in population, Chico did not see proportional revenue growth for increased wastewater flows due to more people sharing households.
Those in support of a sewer service area in Paradise say that it would allow for the development of multi-family housing along evacuation routes and ease the housing crisis in the region.
The EIR studying the regional sewer connection has not been fasttracked and will take approximately 18 months to complete. The report will seek to determine, among a myriad of other questions brought forward by the Project Committee and the public, the desired pipe alignment, capacity impacts to the city’s water pollution control plant and whether a Joint Powers Authority will be formed in the future.