Morro Bay Water Reclamation Facility Project:  Issues, Concerns, and Solutions



Disadvantageous Project  Approaches and Technology


The disadvantageous project approach and technology favored by the Morro Bay Mayor, Council and staff are extremely inefficient, time-consuming, and expensive for taxpayers.  They are, at the same time,  hugely profitable for engineering consultants and construction contractors.  


Most small cities like Morro Bay only do a major infrastructure project like the WRF once every 30 – 50 years.  City officials and staff usually have little-to-no knowledge of and experience with such projects, making them easy “targets”.  Some consulting and construction firms even manage to get “their people” hired by local governments, so that they can influence government decisions from the inside.


It is relatively easy for so-called “experts” from engineering consulting and construction firms  to convince inexperienced City officials and staff that they must pursue a particular course in order to have a successful project.  The officials and staff are comforted by the belief that hiring the “experts” will ensure that everything will go well.  


Officials and staff are drawn into the insidious business model used by most engineering consultants and building contractors. The self-interested “experts” follow the methods and use the technologies that will enable them to make the most money - at taxpayer expense.


In this business model, the project approach has many steps and a great deal of redundancy. First, people are hired to design a plant, in stages of increasing detail, and little piece by little piece.  Essentially, the wheel is reinvented for every project.  Then, the project is put out to bid and someone is hired to build the plant, little piece by little piece.  Usually, a number of different firms get a “piece of the action.”  


The final cost of building a wastewater treatment plant often dwarfs original estimates.  One example is the town of Fillmore, California, where an initial estimate of $24 million ballooned to $83 million.  In Morro Bay, a 2010 estimate of $28 million has already grown to over $130 million.


The favored technologies are those that are the most expensive to design and build, thus maximizing profits for the consultants and construction firms.  The results tend to be large facilities that are inefficient, are many years behind modern technology, and require many people to operate and maintain.


There is a better way, but it seriously threatens the traditional and very lucrative business model of the “experts” and requires City officials and staff to think for themselves.  One whole category of “experts” is cut out of the process.  There is no need for engineering consultants.  Instead of being “stick built” piece by piece, a wastewater treatment plant is assembled from pre-engineered modules.   


There is no need to start out at “ground zero” and re-invent the wheel, because the modules are already designed.  Building the plant is simply a matter of putting the modules together in the way that meets the client’s performance criteria.  In other words, standard components are simply combined in a custom way.  


Like design, construction takes a fraction of the time it would take to “stick build” a plant, and companies that use this approach can deliver very accurate project time and cost estimates.  At least one such company even guarantees project time and cost. The plants are compact, efficient, and easy to maintain and operate, usually requiring about half the staff of an old school plant.


Not surprisingly, most traditional engineering consultants and engineering construction firms tend to be hostile toward this alternative approach to building wastewater treatment plants, and advise their clients to avoid it.  Should the new approach become mainstream, many of the “experts” would be out of work.  City staff members can also be resistant to the approach, due to the reduced number of persons needed to maintain and run the plant.


In Morro Bay, residents have been trying for years to convince City government to stop listening to the “experts”, think for themselves and, in the process, save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.  So far, the response has been negative, and the wrf project continues along the disastrous path that has led to 13 years of repeated failures..