The Peninsula’s water usage dips to its lowest level in nearly 50 years.

David Schmalz here, with some notable news to report. This past water year—a calendar built around the wet season, from Oct. 1, 2023 to Sept. 30, 2024—just 8,972 acre-feet of water were pumped into Cal Am’s system to meet customer demand. It marks the first time since 1977—a severe drought year that led to water rationing—that number has dipped below 9,000 acre-feet. For contrast, the amount of water put into the system in 1976 was around 16,000 acre-feet. 

Prior to 1977, absent water rationing, the last year the Peninsula’s demand was under 9,000 acre-feet was 1957. Meanwhile, both the population and the price of water for customers have grown considerably. 

What does that mean? 

For one, it means that water conservation measures implemented by the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District are working. It also reflects that the demand for water, to a certain extent, is elastic—residents need water to drink and for domestic purposes, but perhaps some decided watering their lawn or whatever else was just not worth the cost. 

What else does it mean?

It means the Peninsula has enough water in its supply portfolio to suffice for decades. How long before another supply addition is needed, once the expansion of the Pure Water Monterey project comes online next summer—which will add another 2,250 acre-feet of recycled water on top of its existing 3,500 acre-feet capacity—is a guessing game that’s being decided on right now in a proceeding before the California Public Utilities Commission. Cal Am has its own supply/demand forecasts going out into the future, while MPWMD and other parties have theirs. 

Cal Am, the Peninsula’s investor-owned utility, has long maintained that a desalination plant is necessary to meet demand for water, not just in the future, but the present. A convincing rationale for that conclusion does not exist, especially given that desal water is the most expensive of all, because saltwater is so energy-intensive to filter. And as the price of water goes up, demand always goes down. 

There’s no saying when CPUC Administrative Law Judge Jake Rambo will issue a proposed decision as to whose supply/demand forecasts are most plausible.

MPWMD officials are certainly hoping Rambo agrees with their assessment, because that will give the agency more tailwind when advocating before the State Water Board to lift the cease-and-desist order the agency brought down on Cal Am in 2009, which prohibited setting new water meters because of Cal Am’s years of illegal overpumping of the Carmel River.

But here’s the thing about the cease-and-desist order, which has frozen most development on the Peninsula for 15 years—it’s essentially, at this point, a punishment, like jail time. Cal Am is pumping within its legal limit of 3,376 acre-feet from the Carmel River, and all other sources in the portfolio, including the Seaside Basin and Pure Water Monterey, are also free and clear of legal complications.

So why does the Peninsula still have the order hanging around its neck like an albatross? Because the State Water Board hasn’t lifted it yet—and has indicated that some consensus from local stakeholders is required to do so, based on reports from a meeting last summer.

Dave Stoldt, MPWMD’s general manager, will be making a case before the State Water Board in the coming months to lift that order, trying to get the Peninsula out of water jail, essentially. 

“If you're not doing the crime, you shouldn’t be doing the time,” Stoldt says. 

He thinks it’s time to bring down the guardrails, and for the state to trust that the Monterey Peninsula is managing its water supply responsibly. 

I believe it is, although that might not be enough to save the Carmel River’s steelhead trout—a primary impetus behind the cease-and-desist order—as I’m not convinced they’ll outlast climate change.

I sure hope I’m wrong.