Mayors’ water group finally releases proposal to modify state’s Carmel River cutback order.

For the past month, Monterey Peninsula Regional Water Authority and its partners have kept details on an important development in the region’s water supply – a bid to push back the state-ordered schedule to reduce Carmel River pumping – secret.

On Feb. 10 MPRWA officials changed course, releasing the draft proposal in advance of their Thursday meeting.

The proposal, dated Jan. 14, argues California American Water has “aggressively” worked to comply with the State Water Resources Control Board’s 2009 cease-and-desist order, which set a December 2016 deadline to reduce Carmel River pumping by 70 percent.

The cornerstone of the draft proposal is a four-year extension, pushing the 70-percent cutback deadline back to Dec. 31, 2020.

As the Weekly reported Jan. 15, the state water board has already rejected two similar proposals within the past year, according to MPRWA member and Carmel-by-the-Sea Mayor Jason Burnett. But this latest proposal, he says, is making progress: “We’re on the right track.”

The proposal would give officials from the state water board’s Division of Water Rights authority to extend even the 2020 deadline “for good cause.”

In addition, starting in the 2015-16 water year, Cal Am would ratchet back its illegal pumping from the Carmel River by an additional 1,000 acre-feet per year for several years – beyond the reduction already achieved.

Cal Am, meanwhile, would set milestones that include breaking ground on the desalination plant by September 2017, with construction of the plant “substantially on schedule” by September 2018 and September 2019, and complete by September 2020. Meanwhile, the company would try to acquire other water rights to reduce its Carmel River pumping.

If Cal Am missed any of those milestones, it would have to reduce Carmel River pumping by another 1,000 acre-feet per year. That is, unless Division of Water Rights officials determine Cal Am and local water agencies have tried their best to hit the milestones, in which case they could decide not to slap its wrist.

Under the draft proposal, the “worst-case scenario,” in which Cal Am missed all its milestones, would reduce Carmel River pumping to about one-third its current level by 2020-21.

“The current [state cutback order] involves a cliff,” says Burnett. “What we’re proposing is a staircase.”

Other points in the proposal are more technical. The 8-page document is in the Feb. 12 MPRWA agenda packet. Burnett encourages the public to attend the meeting and comment.