MONTEREY – California American Water Co. is asking state regulators to reject a request to lift a moratorium on new Carmel River water connections that has left the Monterey Peninsula for two decades without the ability to build much-needed housing.
Cal Am says other water supplies, such as Pure Water Monterey and its expansion, are not stable enough to lift a cease-and-desist order imposed by regulators on pumping a specific amount of water from the Carmel River aquifer. At least not yet.
In October, the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District filed a request with the State Water Resources Control Board to modify the cease-and-desist order for new water connections along the Monterey Peninsula. The order has been in place in one form or another since 1995. If granted, the amendment would allow for new connections and subsequently the construction of new homes.
The desist order was imposed on the Peninsula because Cal Am was pumping far more water than could support a fishery for rainbow trout, a protected species. The order was implemented after lawsuits filed by the Sierra Club and others. Cal Am now says it is an advocate for protecting steelhead trout.
The water district’s request is based on the Monterey Peninsula now being oversupplied with water with the addition of Monterey One Water’s Pure Water Monterey and its recent expansion. What that supply will look like in 2050 has been the subject of heated debate. Cal Am and the water district have very different estimates of how much water the Peninsula will have and need in 25 years.
In August of last year, the California Public Utilities Commission, or CPUC, rescinded its own Public Defenders Office and granted Cal Am its supply and demand estimates. The Public Defender’s office was created to protect the interests of taxpayers.
In December, Cal Am attorneys wrote to Erick Oppenheimer, executive director of the Water Boards, asking him in an eight-page letter to “deny (the water district’s) application or hold it in abeyance” to give Cal Am time to meet with interested parties and fisheries agencies to develop better terms for lifting the order.
Cal Am claims the current water supply is too unstable to lift the order without “guardrails,” a position it has held for years. The investor-owned utility wants what it calls margins of safety in case other water sources – specifically Pure Water Monterey – fail at least in part. Much of the company’s logic is based on what-if scenarios.
Cal Am in its letter states that Pure Water Monterey’s expansion is “unproven” and vulnerable to future droughts and water source reductions. Dave Laredo, the water district’s attorney, filed additional materials with the Water Boards asserting that Cal Am’s claims were “false or misleading.”
He said the claim that Pure Water Monterey’s expansion is unproven is false and omits data. He said the expansion is far from proven, citing recent production numbers from several months as evidence, as well as the performance of the existing Pure Water Monterey project over the past five years.
“Pure Water Monterey’s expansion is operational and clearly demonstrates that it is providing the Monterey Peninsula with a reliable supply,” Laredo wrote.
Pure Water Monterey and its expansion receive water from wastewater, a portion of which comes from the Salinas Valley. It is then purified and injected into the Seaside Basin aquifer for further extraction and is regulated by the State. The water district, Monterey One Water and others say the only way Cal Am’s doomsday scenario could play out is if people stopped showering and produce distributors stopped washing their produce.
Cal Am, in its letter to Oppenheimer, referenced its desalination project at least three times as a water source it considers stable in the future. In an emailed statement to the Herald, Cal Am spokesman Josh Stratton said the company “intends to lift the (cease and desist order) and is equally committed to responsible water management, which is complex and depends on planning for future droughts, including providing reasonable safety margins to ensure sufficient supply to meet all future demand.”
The water district has been arguing against Cal Am’s claims for years, primarily before the CPUC. Last month, Dave Laredo, the water district’s attorney, filed additional materials with the Water Boards claiming that Cal Am’s claims were “false or misleading.”
For example, in Cal Am’s letter to the Water Boards, the company states that the CPUC recently “found that the desalination project is necessary to deliver a permanent supply of water to the Peninsula to…meet Cal Am’s projected water demands.”
Laredo, in an attachment to a January filing with the CPUC, said that statement is false because the CPUC never stated that it considered the desalination project necessary. The only decision the CPUC made was about current and expected future demand, Laredo wrote.
Stratton called the water district’s explanations a “public relations blitz.”
No timeline has been publicly set for when the Water Boards will take up the matter. It’s not on the agency’s calendar until May, but agendas for board meetings going that far have not yet been set and the request could be addressed during a future board meeting.