The county has a plan to make Laguna Seca’s water potable again, but it’s a year away.

Every year, when cycling enthusiasts from around the world roll to the Laguna Seca Raceway for the Sea Otter Classic, the county-run campgrounds at the racetrack are packed to capacity. But like every year since 2006, campers still have to bring their own water.

That’s because the water that comes out of the taps at the campground contains a level of arsenic that exceeds the federal limit of 10 parts per billion – before the law went into effect in 2006, the federal limit was 50 parts per billion. (The arsenic in the campground’s water, and in other places along the Highway 68 corridor, is naturally occurring.)

But finally, due to money from the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan Act, which Congress passed in 2021, the county has the funds for a fix.

In 2021, the county allocated $1.9 million toward making the Laguna Seca campground’s water potable – though it’s since been reduced to $1.6 million – and County Parks Director Bryan Flores says a feasibility study has just been completed, but it remains in draft form at the moment.

The plan entails installing somewhere between seven and 10 “kiosks” throughout the campground – like one might see outside a grocery store to fill up 5-gallon jugs – that will filter the water at “the point of contact,” Flores says. A facility-wide filtration system for Laguna Seca, he adds, would be prohibitively expensive.

A system-wide fix, however, is in the works at the county’s Lake San Antonio recreation area, which is also being built with ARPA funds at a cost of over $3 million. The reason, Flores says, is that the filter of a point of contact system can’t sufficiently filter out the fine particles of mud in the water there.

The project at Laguna Seca is expected to be completed next spring, but it’s too early to say if it will be in time for the 2024 Sea Otter Classic.