Paradise sewer: It’s now or never
It’s now or never.
That’s the message from Paradise town engineer Marc Mattox as it relates to building a sewer within the town limits.
On Tuesday night, the Paradise Town Council voted unanimously to move forward on an environmental impact report on the potential of building a sewer pipe to Chico’s water treatment plant.
The Chico option has been the most favored option by town staff and those who studied the issues going back to 2015.
However, in 2019, the council decided that dealing with Chico had too many political unknowns. But it appears that those unknown are being addressed — to the point that Vice Mayor Jody Jones said that she was more comfortable with the Chico option.
That comfort comes from the fact that the state is working to make the Chico pipe a reality.
The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board supports the people and sewer construction
of the sewer. The board wants to form a Brown Actcompliant committee composed of at least four members with two elected councilors from both the Town of Paradise and the city of Chico.
While it’s true that there were some political issues surrounding the issue as it relates to Chico, the biggest
issue may have been the cost to Chico.
“Imagine if the tables were flipped and our community would react if somebody came to us and asked us to spend our own money to study and help them at our cost without a real plan or commitment,” Mattox said. “I think that’s plagued in the past couple of years and go arounds.”
He added that it looked like Paradise was looking for help and expecting Chico to pay for it. This time, however, grant funding is being used to pay for the EIR and some of that money is being set aside for Chico to hire their own consultant and pay for their staff to help Chico study what it needs to help Paradise.
Mattox said, along with the grant, the state — in the form of Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control — is acting as sort of an intermediary between the two government agencies to get the desired result of a regional water treatment plant solution to Paradise sewer.
The state is trying to keep the town a path that has funding at the end of it that gets the estimated $182 million project built, Mattox said. Locally he said that Paradise would be not be able to build a plant with 300 standing structures within sewer area.
With the knowledge that Paradise can’t build it on its own and Chico’s portion of the study funded by
the state, Mattox said everyone has a fresh perspective on the project.
All that means to Mattox is now is the time to move on the sewer.
“If it’s not now — it’s never,” he said. “It has to be now for sewer for Paradise,” Mattox said.
He added the restrictions will only get worse and that the idea that residents buy and combine lots for dispersal is not sustainable.
“We have to be able to support restaurants and multi-family housing to recover fully — or at all,” he said.
He noted that the town will be going to Chico in January with the proposal.
Additionally, town manager Kevin Philips says what they’re trying to do is strip the politics from the idea and do what’s right for both communities.
“We’re trying to get to an understanding that this is a regional project to support both communities,” Philips said. “Each community is going to pay their own way and it will be beneficial to both communities. This is not a political project but beneficial projects.”
Phillips said that this EIR will be interactive and they invite those who may oppose it early on in order to get their input and address concern. One of those may be growth, but Mattox views it differently.
“Pre-fire we were talking about growth inducing because restaurants and hair salons can have more than two seats,” he said. “Post-fire after experiencing an 83 percent population loss, how could a project designed to get us back to that be growth inducing? It’s recovery inducing and its closed pipe from Paradise to Chico’s plant.”