Water purchase agreement

I am dismayed by Cal Am's recent refusal to sign the Water Purchase Agreement for the Expanded Pure Water Monterey Project claiming they need more money from ratepayers. This water is urgently needed for new housing and drought protection. Cal Am has stalled this project for many years by effectively lobbying state and local officials (using ratepayer money) to only accept their desalination proposal which we do not need.with the expansion but which Cal Am can continue to gouge ratepayers (we pay one of the highest water rates in the nation) and make maximum profit. In November 2021, after five months of negotiating with the Water District and Monterey One Water, Cal Am finally submitted the Water Purchase Agreement to the CPUC and it was approved by the California Public Utilities Commission Dec. 1. The Expansion will only cost $60 million of which the Commission recently approved, but Cal Am is stalling for more. Cal Am does not like the Pure Water Monterey Projects because there is less profit in it for Cal Am. Cal Am knows that if the Expansion is built, their monstrous, environmentally and ratepayer unjust desalination — costing ratepayers $426 million — would not be needed. It has been nearly three years, the Expansion could have been delivering water by now, but Cal Am continues to hold our community's water supply hostage. Please contact the California Public Utilities Commission and urge them to force Cal Am to sign this Water Purchase Agreement to enable ratepayers and residents to become water secure.

— Walt Notley, Monterey