Volume 12
•
Issue 40
•
September 3 - 16, 2015
YOUR COMMUNITY IN YOUR HANDS AVILA BEACH • SHELL BEACH • PISMO BEACH • GROVER BEACH • ARROYO GRANDE • HALCYON • OCEANO The Central Coast Classique, a 30, 64, and 100-mile bike ride, peddled throughout the county to raise funds for Wilshire Creative Mediation and SLO LEAF. See more photos on page 8. Photo by www.PhotoByVivian.com
Price Petroleum Projects Pending
Goodbye to The Girl’s After 42 Years
By Theresa-Marie Wilson
By Theresa-Marie Wilson
O
il production in Pismo Beach could ramp up in the near future. Two public hearings are scheduled this month concerning separate projects by the same company in Price Canyon. The California Department of Conservation, Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) will hold a public hearing in San Luis Obispo on a request by Freeport McMoRan Oil & Gas to expand the current “aquifer exemption” for the groundwater aquifer in the Arroyo Grande Oil Field to allow injection wells for waste chemicals and oilfield slag. Typically, these wells are about a mile or more deep, which is far beneath groundwa-
tolosapress.com
ter basins. “Subject to approval by the US Environmental Protection Agency, the proposed aquifer exemption would allow the State, in compliance with the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, to approve Class II injection into the identified area, either for enhanced oil recovery or for injection disposal of fluids associated with oil and gas production,” states a DOGGR report. Injection wells are used to increase oil recovery and to safely dispose of the salt and fresh water produced with oil and natural gas. See Oil, page 9
F Fire Department Gets New Gear Page 4
Madelines Page 47
orty-one years ago, a teenage girl sat at a table in a local coffee shop in Arroyo Grande and helped convince a boy she was dating to fill out a job application. He ended up getting a job as a dishwasher; about a month later she got a job as a bus girl. In 1993, Scott and Cindy Harrigan, who were by then married with four children, purchased that same coffee shop and became the new owners of The Girl’s Restaurant. “It had been closed for about six months and Scott had kept driving by it,” said Cindy Harrigan who was a school bus driver at the time and her husband was a salesman for a grocery wholesale company. “It was
just sitting there, nobody had moved in. We called and asked if they would consider selling the restaurant to us. Basically, it was a turnkey. It cost us about $25,000 for all the equipment and stuff; we didn’t have to actually buy the building.” Last Sunday, the Harrigan’s closed the doors for the final time to the restaurant that had been open for 42 years. Harrigan said they were forced to either move or close the coffee shop after renovations to the plaza on East Grand Avenue and South Elm Street by the owner Phil Fontes would result in a nearly triple increase See The Girls, page 49