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Emergency infrastructure repairs are slowly transitioning into permanent upgrades in the unincorporated Monterey County community of Pajaro, where two years ago a series of torrential storms caused a pipe to fail and a road to collapse.
In March 2023, a 300-foot breach opened in the Pajaro River levee, sending flood water through the Pajaro community. More than 2,000 residents were forced to evacuate and emergency personnel conducted more than 90 rescues.
On Thursday, Maria Gallegos Herrera, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s state director of rural development for California, visited the Las Lomas Community Church in Royal Oaks to announce the award of $4.08 million to support the Pajaro County Sanitation District with infrastructure repairs.
After that levee breach happened in 2023, residents of Pajaro were advised to use bottled water for weeks. A dozen sewage pumping trucks were brought in to continuously move wastewater directly to a treatment facility.
“We believe a pipe had failed, which caused a road to collapse during those high intensity storm events,” said Randy Ishii, director of the Monterey County Department of Public Works. It is in that area, near the Las Lomas part of the district, where the grant funds will be used, he said.
Pipeline under pressure
PCSD, which is managed by Monterey County, collects and transports wastewater through 20 miles of pressurized sewer lines to a treatment plant operated by the city of Watsonville. The system serves the agricultural communities of Pajaro, Las Lomas and Bay Farms.
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The pressurized sewer line that broke downstream when the levee failed is currently operating after emergency repairs. The county applied for a second USDA grant of $6 million to replace that impacted 2-mile stretch.
The grant announced Thursday will upgrade the pipes and pumps that serve about 6,000 people in the disadvantaged rural communities of Las Lomas and Pajaro, but the entire water district will benefit from the modernization of its aging water lift, a pump that pushes the wastewater to the Watsonville plant. Improvements will also include a new computer monitoring system, as well as structural repairs to wells and lines to properties.
According to an internal county document, in 2022 and 2023, Monterey County used roughly $2 million from American Rescue Plan Act funding to replace a failed sewer line in Las Lomas and conduct manhole and spot sewer repairs in Pajaro. They conducted an inspection and estimated that a full system rehabilitation will need an additional $15-20 million.
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