Agencies To Weigh In On Water Proposal
By Kevin Howe, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.
Jan. 25–A meeting to discuss a long-term water source for the Monterey Bay area will be hosted Wednesday by the state Public Utilities Commission’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates in Marina.
It is being held to gauge the interest of agencies involved in water supply to work together on such a project, said Diana Brooks, supervisor of the Ratepayer Advocates Water Branch. Those agencies include the Monterey Peninsula Water Management Agency, California American Water and the Monterey County Water Resources Agency.
Attendance by the agencies is not required, though interest in the issue has been evident in discussions among representatives from cities, public agencies and Cal Am at recent advisory committee meetings.
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 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 water it takes beyond the 3,376 acre-feet per year 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 a distribution and storage system based on the PUC plan published in 2002.
Officials of 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.
On Tuesday, the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District’s Technical Advisory Committee recommended that the Cal Am project be built to produce 12,500 acre-feet per year of replacement water and an additional 4,500 acre-feet to meet expected future needs.
Cal Am’s current proposal before the PUC is a “no-growth” project aimed at complying with the state directive to replace the water it is drawing from the Carmel River, said water company vice president and Monterey division manager Steve Leonard.
A larger plan would provide greater economy of scale for water customers, he said, and Cal Am made room for that possibility when seeking permits for its experimental pilot desalination plant, which the company hopes will lead to a regional desalination facility.
Wednesday’s meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. at the UC’s Monterey Bay Education, Science and Technology Center, 3239 Imjin Road.
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If you go –What:PUC Ratepayer Advocates meeting on water supply –When:9:30 a.m. –Where:MBEST Center, 3239 Imjin Road, Marina –Information:Catherine Borrowman, UC-Santa Cruz research administrator, 459-3288 or cborrow@ucsc.edu
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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