The Water Ratepayers of the Monterey Peninsula, a local group of water activists generally opposed to Cal Am and high water rates, are not going down without a fight.
On June 28, attorney David Balch filed a writ of mandate—in effect, a request for a cease and desist order—in Monterey County Superior Court on their behalf.
It alleges the California Coastal Commission, its commissioners, the County Board of Supervisors and county staff are failing to uphold the law in allowing California American Water to continue its test slant well operation at the Cemex property in Marina, which is also the site of Cal Am’s proposed permanent slant wells.
Several alleged legal violations are addressed, but not before Balch offers the court some context about who he represents: These are Cal Am ratepayers, who want an extension of the state’s cease and desist order that states Cal Am must stop its illegal pumping of the Carmel River by Jan. 1, 2017, lest the ratepayers suffer higher water bills.
Nonetheless, the suit states, laws are being broken, and “WRAMP and its members are interested as citizens in having the laws executed and the duty in question enforced.”
The lawsuit then gives a blow-by-blow account of Cal Am’s quest for more water over the years, dating back to the ’90s.
The allegations are many, and most stem from the Coastal Commission and the county allegedly not enforcing the North Monterey County Local Coastal Plan.
In that plan, which was certified in 1982, the key policy at issue says “North County groundwater aquifers shall be protected, and new development shall be controlled to a level that can be served by identifiable, available, long term-water supplies.”
The suit argues the test well also violates the LCP policy that the county shall “protect groundwater supplies for coastal priority agricultural uses.”
Nearby Ag Land Trust wells, the suit alleges, are being negatively affected by the test slant well, which it says is facilitating seawater intrusion, thereby violating the law.
Moreover, it states Cal Am doesn’t have the right to pump the water, no matter what it does with it.
“Cal Am wants to be a junior water appropriator without overlying or senior groundwater rights,” the lawsuit reads. “Cal Am has no groundwater rights and cannot acquire any. Cal Am has conducted water quality sampling that already shows that its proposed extended pumping of the test well has drawn and will continue to intentionally and significantly draw water from ‘fresh’ potable aquifers without a claim of right.”
The suit also states the proposed operation on the site would violate the Agency Act of the Monterey County Water Resources Agency, which states no groundwater can be exported from the Salinas Valley Groundwater Basin.
That law, the suit states, does not distinguish between potable and non-potable water. Therefore, discharging saline water into the sea, a byproduct of brackish water pumped from the aquifer and desalinated, would violate that law.
The first hearing for the case is scheduled for Nov. 1.
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CORRECTION 06/30/16 10:45am: The headline in an earlier version this story incorrectly stated the lawsuit was against Cal Am, which is false. The writ was filed against the Coastal Commission and the county.