No Truce in Montecito’s Water Wars

Opponents Take Aim at New Operations Building for Sanitary District

The Montecito Sanitary District's plan for a 5,000 square-foot operations building at the wastewater treatment plant at 1042 Monte Cristo Lane are on hold, pending county review. The building is shown here in an artist's rendering as it would be appear from Channel Drive. Brian Cearnal is the project architect. Photo courtesy of the Montecito Sanitary District. | Credit: Courtesy

The plans for a new operations building at the Montecito Sanitary District — a project 15 years in the making — are suddenly in limbo, a potential casualty of Montecito’s divisive water wars.

The district board awarded $4.6 million in contracts for a 5,000-square-foot “essential services building” earlier this month on a 3-2 vote. The majority said it was well past time to replace the aging and substandard offices that were built decades ago behind the wastewater treatment plant at 1042 Monte Cristo Lane. Construction was set to begin in August along Channel Drive.

“These buildings have probably passed their life expectancy: I don’t think they were very well built,” Board President Tom Bollay, a Montecito architect, said on June 7 in the district’s boardroom, under a roof that was tarped against leaks. “We need to be thinking one hundred years out. Previous boards have discussed this every year at public hearings, and at some point, we have to move forward.”