County approves Ferrini Ranch development, on condition of an unlikely sewer scenario.

How many toilet flushes would it take to stabilize the Salinas Valley Groundwater Basin?

The question may sound counter-intuitive, but thanks to innovations in wastewater recycling, some 12,000 acres of North County agricultural land is irrigated by the stuff we flush or send down the drain. That reduces the need to tap the overdrafted aquifer.

The wastewater recycling project, headed by Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency (PCA), has gotten the attention of Monterey Peninsula officials, who desperately need new water sources. It’s also inspiring a newly approved housing development along Highway 68.

Ferrini Ranch will span about 5 miles, from River Road to San Benancio Canyon, with 185 new homes on 860 acres. Its environmental impacts – from more cars on Highway 68 to the removal of 921 oak trees – are listed and analyzed in the project’s environmental impact report, which the County Board of Supervisors approved 3-2 Dec. 9.

But Supervisor Lou Calcagno, the apparent swing vote, pushed through some last-minute changes, approved Dec. 16. Among them: donating some designated open space to the Ag Land Trust. And connecting the project’s sewer system to the PCA’s treatment plant in Marina, where it could be recycled for crop irrigation, helping to offset the project’s water use.

Calcagno’s condition requires the developer, Mark Kelton of Santa Monica-based Domain Corp., to put $425,000 into a fund to create a Toro Area Community Services District. The district would buy out the existing, private sewer utility: California Utilities Service, under the same ownership as East Salinas water purveyor Alco. Eventually, it would build a pipeline to carry wastewater from Ferrini Ranch and neighboring subdivisions, like Las Palmas, to Marina for recycling.

The developer’s fund would not include engineering and infrastructure costs. A 2010 study by PCA estimates it would cost about $12 million to connect to the Toro sewer system. That’s an additional $134 per household per month; the average monthly sewer bill for the area already is about $120.

“That’s a very expensive proposition,” PCA General Manager Keith Israel says. “The numbers are pretty staggering.”

Another hurdle: The existing private utility would have to be willing to sell or contract with the private district. Tom Adcock, president of California Utilities Service, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Meanwhile, land use watchdog LandWatch plans to file a lawsuit early next year. LandWatch attorney John Farrow also takes issue with plans to tack a recycled water project onto the much bigger Ferrini Ranch proposal.

“The bare condition – without details, analysis, or commitment to action – cannot be found to provide any definite or discernible mitigation for the project’s water-supply impacts,” Farrow writes in a Dec. 15 letter to the Board of Supervisors.

At his final meeting before retirement, Calcagno indicated the sewer plan resolves his own concerns about water: “It’s going to be a key issue.”

The condition also offers an out for Kelton. If within two and a half years there’s no new district or water delivery agreement, he gets his $425,000 back.