Mounting long-term water needs will require Salinas Valley landowners to tax themselves, and multiple agencies may be asking.

The Salinas Valley is said to feed the world, but being a fertile powerhouse depends on access to water, an increasingly scarce resource whose future could come down to decisions made in the next few years.

The Monterey County Water Resources Agency, as well as Salinas Valley agricultural interests, hope the state will pull $150 million from its roughly $21 billion budget surplus to finance dam repairs at two South County reservoirs. Although MCWRA General Manager Brent Buche says the dams are stable, they are under elevated scrutiny since the destructive failure of the Oroville Dam spillway. If the issues are not addressed by November 2024, the state could cut the reservoirs’ legal capacity.

MCWRA also wants $150 million from the state for an interlake tunnel project to connect the reservoirs. Although long-planned, the project has been long-panned by stakeholders for lacking benefit analyses.

Buche says competition for state surplus dollars creates a “strong possibility” the county could leave with an empty hat. The alternative is Proposition 218, a path of considerably greater resistance. It would ask Salinas Valley landowners to finance the projects through a tax they vote to levy on themselves. Logistically and politically intensive, Prop. 218 rate increases require a complex report that spells out project specifics. In this case, a campaign to secure majority support across a diverse Salinas Valley would follow.

As MCWRA measures Prop. 218’s necessity, the Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency is working on its own Prop. 218 effort. At the state’s behest, SVBGSA has published a suite of long-term plans to reduce seawater intrusion and manage the long-unregulated groundwater basins. Combined, the projects in those plans come in close to a billion dollars. The catch, General Manager Donna Meyers says, will be selecting the projects worth studying and bringing to landowners for a vote. SVBGSA’s Prop. 218 efforts could be up to five years away, but Buche is concerned about competition with MCWRA projects.

“This is a tough situation,” Norm Groot, executive director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau says. “These projects take years before the benefit is felt. How do we keep that momentum and gain financial support without bankrupting our community?”

Nancy Isakson, president of the Salinas Valley Water Coalition, says cost will be no worry if the projects are good and the benefits are clear. She points to the 2003 vote on the Salinas Valley Water Project, which gained a weighted approval of 85 percent.

“Consider the cost of not having a project. It will be horrendous,” Isakson says. “The Salinas Valley feeds the world. If they couldn’t farm because of water issues, that would be a big cost.”

Yet, much weight will be placed on the technical aspects of Prop. 218. Before seeking state surplus to fund the dam project – widely seen as critical to the health of valley – MCWRA began a Prop. 218 process but buried it after landowners challenged the agency’s analysis of cost and benefits.