Paradise weighs local wastewater options after regional plan stalls

PARADISE, Calif. — Town of Paradise officials and consultants held a community meeting to gather public input on alternatives for the Paradise Sewer Project after the town voted in January to shift away from a regional hookup with the City of Chico due to soaring costs and reduced funding.

The meeting’s purpose was “to make this about you and how the project should go moving forward,” Mark Netdix, the town’s public works director and town engineer, told residents as the town outlined why regionalization was abandoned and what local options remain.

Town leaders said the Paradise Sewer Project remains central to recovery objectives — improving groundwater quality, restoring affordable housing and supporting commercial recovery — but that the previously planned regional option is no longer financially feasible. Officials described existing funding, new funding prospects and a process for vetting alternatives and vendors, and they sought community direction on phasing and siting.

Background and funding

Officials reviewed the project’s history, saying a 2017 study evaluated both regional and local approaches and that after the 2018 Camp Fire the town selected a regional alternative with Chico. The town said it has an adopted programmatic environmental impact report and that it received Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery funds for preconstruction work: "$30,000,000 for planning" with an identified $15,000,000 toward construction that may be reallocated to preconstruction as needed. Netdix said the town also received a congressional allocation of $1,750,000 secured by Congressman Doug LaMalfa, and is pursuing a possible $50,000,000 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Section 219 allocation and a $27,000,000 state water board Division of Financial Assistance grant; a $20,000,000 low-interest loan option was also noted.

Netdix said the town does not yet…