Coastal Commission green-lights Cal Am appeal to build desal test well.

Vindication smells salty for California American Water.

Earlier this afternoon, the California Coastal Commission unanimously approved Cal Am's bid to build a test intake well for its proposed seawater desalination facility in north Marina.

The Marina Planning Commission and City Council had both denied the construction permit, prompting Cal Am to appeal to the Coastal Commission. (Hard up for reading material? Here's the 1,110-page commission staff report, including attached exhibits.)

Cal Am has also cleared another big roadblock for the test well. Last week, Cal Am reached an access agreement with Cemex, the sand-mining company that owns the land where Cal Am wants to drill. The settlement came just one day before Monterey Superior Court was scheduled to hear Cal Am's eminent domain lawsuit, a last-ditch effort to force its way onto the Cemex property.

Cal Am spokeswoman Catherine Stedman won't give a date for construction of the test well to begin, but she says it will happen "as soon as possible." Company officials are rushing to have the well built by March, when they'll have to halt construction due to the start of Western snowy plover nesting season.