Cal Am pipeline construction coming soon to Peninsula.

Construction of the first water pipeline on the Monterey Peninsula began in 1881, when Charles Crocker sought to bring Carmel River water to the Hotel Del Monte.

Another major pipeline project, this one to be built and owned by California American Water, is set to break ground in October.

Cal Am officials have been making the rounds to city council meetings of late, laying out the timeline and logistics of a new pipeline that will stretch from the top of Hilby Avenue in Seaside to a Cal Am pumphouse on Sinex Avenue in Pacific Grove.

Construction of the pipeline, which will cost $50 million, is expected to be completed by the end of 2017, and “potholing”—digging up parts of the street to ascertain the location of existing infrastructure—has already begun.

Critics of the pipeline’s cost have suggested that a pipeline over hill to Carmel Valley—as opposed to around the horn of the Peninsula—would be far less costly to ratepayers.

At the Sep. 1 Seaside City Council meeting, where Cal Am presented the project timeline, Councilmember Jason Campbell expressed the concerns he’d been hearing from the public, and asked why a pipeline over the hill wasn’t an option.

Cal Am engineer Ian Crooks said that in a past Cal Am project, the Coastal Water Project, the over-the-hill option was deemed to not be an environmentally preferable alternative by the environmental impact report, so Cal Am didn’t pursue it this time around.

Cal Am spokeswoman Catherine Stedman says the company will be doing outreach in the coming weeks that includes door hangers, signage and will set up an informational hotline at 646-3297. A rough schedule of the project, including a map of the new pipelines location, can be found at watersupplyproject.org.