Encore Likely For Cal Am: Company on Track to Meet State’s Limits

By Kevin Howe, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.

Mar. 21–California American Water appears headed for a repeat of its success last year in staying within state-mandated limits for pumping water out of the Carmel River and meeting target limits on extraction from the coastal Seaside aquifer, the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District was told last night.

Senior district hydrologist Darby Fuerst presented a report on the water company’s compliance with the state Water Resources Control Board’s 1995 order limiting extraction from the river to no more than 11,285 acre-feet per water year. A water year runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.

The state stepped in when depletion of water in the riverbed threatened vegetation along the river and several endangered species, including the steelhead trout and the California red-legged frog.

Fuerst noted that Cal Am has extracted 4,230 acre-feet from the river of an authorized 4,341 acre-feet by March 16.

In the Seaside basin, he said, Cal Am has pumped 1,200 acre-feet of a goal of 1,452. The total “gives us a 363-acre-foot buffer” for the summer months, Fuerst said.

This year’s generous winter rains were credited with holding down well-water pumping by the utility. Fuerst’s report noted a “spike” in water production from the Seaside basin in February due to a lack of rain and a week of warm weather that month, but it quickly subsided when the rains returned at month’s end.

Cal Am pumps from the river during winter months when it is flowing and leaves the Seaside basin wells largely dormant during the rainy season to allow the aquifer to recharge, Fuerst said, then reduces pumping from the river and increases pumping in the basin as the rains subside. “There is zero production (in the Seaside basin) in the winter for the most part.”

Indications are that the area will continue to receive rain in April and May, he said.

In other action, the district board approved disbursement of $477,861 in state grant money funded through ballot Proposition 50 for completion of an integrated regional water management plan for the Monterey Peninsula, Carmel Bay and southern Monterey Bay.

“Every major water supply source in California is currently over-allocated,” district water resources engineer Larry Hampson told the board, so the Monterey Peninsula is not alone in suffering from water shortages.

Integrated regional plans are intended to set up systems to use water more efficiently, improve the system’s reliability, foster cooperation among communities, public agencies and water stakeholders, and achieve economy of scale in planning and construction.

In the process, the district is required to plan strategies for ecosystem restoration, environmental and habitat protection and improvement, water supply reliability, flood and groundwater management, recreation and public access, storm-water capture and management, conservation, water quality protection and improvement, and water recycling.

Optional strategies the district plans to consider, Hampson said, include desalination, land-use planning, water storage, nonpoint-source pollution control, water and wastewater treatment, and watershed planning.

Maximum funding available was $500,000 and the area receiving it must provide a 25 percent local contribution, which Hampson said the district has exceeded in donated staff time. The district plan, he added, must be finished by Dec. 31 and a draft plan should be ready by mid-August.

The district board authorized General Manager David Berger to enter into grant-financed contracts with several agencies to develop the plan, including: $250,000 to the city of Monterey, $14,368 to the Carmel River Watershed Conservancy, $25,000 to the Big Sur Land Trust, $146,485 to RMC Water and Environment consultants and $41,008 to Padre and Associates.

The various contracts call for development of project plans, site plans and an environmental impact report.

Kevin Howe can be reached at 646-4416 or khowe@montereyherald.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.

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