Desalination plant plan brings protest
Central Coast project would raise water bills, endanger aquifer, opponents say
Activists and local government officials across Monterey County have banded together to fight a proposed desalination plant that could double the cost of water for some residents and endanger an aquifer that serves low-income communities.
Opponents say the plant could cause saltwater to seep into the Salinas Valley Groundwater Basin, the aquifer that provides fresh water to much of Monterey County.
California American Water, an investor-owned public utility, however, says that the plant is needed to fulfill the Monterey Peninsula’s water needs and that the effects on other communities will be minimal, if any.
The water provided by the plant would serve mostly the affluent part of the region, while the aquifer at risk provides water to low-income communities. As a result, opponents say, the plant creates an environmental justice problem.
Desalination is a costly technology that extracts salt from seawater to make it potable.
Funded by public monies, investors and customers, Calam estimates the project will cost $329 million over 30 years, including a pipeline that already has been constructed. The average bill a Calam customer in the affected areas pays today is about $90, and with the desalination project, the company expects it to rise by about 50% to around $136.
“The Monterey Peninsula has a long, long history of trying to develop a sustainable water supply. This has been going on since the 1970s,” said Catherine Stedman, Calam’s Central California manager of external affairs, referencing decades of blocked or discontinued projects. “This project has come the furthest of any.”
Opponents include Monterey County Supervisor Jane Parker, who called for a “legal and affordable” alternative to the desalination project.
“(The project) will suck millions of gallons a day out of the already overdrawn Salinas Valley Groundwater Basin, which is what Marina, Salinas, Chualar, Soledad, Greenfield and our ag communities rely on for their water, and will incur seawater incursion and lower the groundwater level,” Parker said. The ground level might sink, she said.
Instead, Parker and others advocated for a publicly owned water recycling plant, which they said would keep costs lower and provide sufficient water.
Monterey resident Diane Cotton attended a protest against the project last week and said she agreed that a recycling plant was the best way forward. A former high school counselor at Seaside High School and Monterey High School, Cotton recently moved to Monterey from Seaside.
She worries that her former neighbors will face higher bills as water is siphoned off and sent to the wealthiest on the Peninsula. As it is, she said, the cost of living is only climbing.
“I want my students’ students to live where their parents live,” Cotton said. “I don’t think that’s happening.”
3-pronged approach
Calam faces a stiff challenge to find other ways to provide water if its desalination project is blocked. By 2021, it no longer will be allowed to siphon water from the Carmel River during the rainy months after a decision by the State Water Resources Control Board to protect a fish species.
Calam currently diverts and stores Carmel River water throughout the rest of the year in the Seaside groundwater basin to meet the demands of its customers.
It has been required over the years to slowly lessen the amount it diverts from the river. The company estimates that this latest step, however, will cut its water output in half, Stedman said.
To make up for the lost Carmel River water, Calam proposed a three-pronged solution: the desalination plant, a recycled water project called Pure Water Monterey, and an aquifer storage recovery project, which would expand an existing storage program.
The desalination project would include building slant wells in an aquifer in the Marina area. The project would siphon off seawater and brackish water and send the desalinated water south to spots like Pacific Grove, Carmel and Monterey.
Because an amount of freshwater likely would be drawn as well, none of that water can be sold outside the Salinas Valley Basin.
For at least the past decade, desalination plants have come into the conversation as a way to continue to supply water to California’s growing population. In 2018, nearly 40 million people called the state home. By 2055, the state could boast a population
of 50 million, according to a California Department of Finance estimate.
However, a 2016 study by the Pacific Institute found that building desalination plants on the coast would top the list among the costliest water fixes.
“It’s a significant investment, but the alternative is not having enough water to meet our customers’ demands,” Calam’s Stedman said.
In a letter to the Coastal Commission signed by 28 elected officials on the Peninsula and in Salinas, local officials requested that the commission deny Calam’s permit for the desalination project. The commission is scheduled to consider the permit at its Nov. 14 meeting in Half Moon Bay.
“The economic impact of this unnecessary project would be a hardship on the entire community,” the letter read.
“Monterey Peninsula Cal Am customers already pay the highest cost in the nation for water and this desalination project would double residents’ water bills. It would make water unaffordable for many and create an environmental injustice issue for our lowerincome communities of Marina and Seaside.”
Opponents estimate it will cost far more than the $329 million that Calam estimates. Instead, they say it