Agency Proposes Water Meeting: PUC Division Will Focus on Regional Solution
By Kevin Howe, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.
Jan. 9–A meeting to discuss a long-term water source for the Monterey Bay area has been tentatively scheduled for Jan. 31 by the state Public Utilities Commission’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates on the Monterey Peninsula.
The meeting is being held to gauge the interest of agencies involved in water supply — including the Monterey Peninsula Water Management Agency, California American Water and the Monterey County Water Resources Agency — in working together on such a project, said Diana Brooks, supervisor of the Ratepayer Advocates Water Branch.
In 1995, the state Water Resources Control Board advised Cal Am that it was taking an extra 10,730 acre-feet per year from the Carmel River Aquifer — more than was legally allowed.
The river is the major source of water for Cal Am customers on the Monterey Peninsula, including Seaside, Sand City, Monterey, Del Rey Oaks, Pacific Grove and Carmel, as well as the Monterey Peninsula Airport District, Pebble Beach and other unincorporated areas of the county.
The Water Resources Board ordered Cal Am to develop another source for any water over 3,376 acre-feet per year taken from the river aquifer, and until then, to reduce pumping by 20 percent per year. In 1998, the state Legislature required the Public Utilities Commission to develop a long-term water supply contingency plan to meet the needs of Peninsula residents.
Cal Am is pursuing plans for a regional seawater desalination plant, and distribution and storage system based on the PUC plan published in 2002.
Officials for the Division of Ratepayer Advocates said they believe there are potentially greater economic benefits to pursuing a project beyond Cal Am’s, Brooks said, and it has retained economist Steve Kasower and the Urban and Regional Water Research Team from the University of California-Santa Cruz to assist in the discussions.
Meanwhile, Cal Am can continue to pursue its water project, Brooks said, adding that a regional proposal wouldn’t be limited to one big desalination or other plant, but could be “a grouping of projects” that would lead to better service and lower costs to ratepayers.
Cal Am welcomes the discussions, said water company vice president and Monterey division manager Steve Leonard.
The company’s own proposal, he said, is a “no-growth” project aimed at complying with the state directive to replace the water Cal Am is drawing from the Carmel River.
A larger plan would provide greater economy of scale for water customers, he said, and Cal Am provided for that possibility in the environmental process of seeking permits for its experimental pilot desalination plant, which the company hopes will lead to a regional facility.
The PUC and Ratepayer Advocates, he said, “are making an argument that is difficult for us to make, but one that they can make” for a larger water project that would serve North Monterey County as well as the Peninsula area.
“We’re reluctant to do more than replace Carmel River water,” Leonard said, “because we’re not a planning agency, we’re a delivery agency.”
Monterey City Manager Fred Meurer described the proposal for meetings as good news.
The Division of Ratepayer Advocates, he said, “will take a look at it from the ratepayers’ perspective as the best way to deal with water on the Monterey Peninsula and North County. The good news is that it’s an outside, independent agency, and their focus is on what’s best for the ratepayer, not Cal Am, the Water Management District, or the county Water Resources Agency.”
A specific time and location for the Jan. 31 meeting will be announced later this month, Brooks said.
Kevin Howe can be reached at 646-4416 or khowe@montereyherald.com.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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