State PUC says Cal Am can ignore county and go it alone on desal plant; county says, ‘What?’

Like a let-down lover who swears off dating, California American Water is trying to go it alone.


Cal Am’s latest desalination proposal, dubbed the Water Supply Project, makes the company the owner and operator of a desalination plant near the regional landfill in North Marina – flaunting a 1989 county law requiring public ownership of desal plants – on the assumption the law itself is illegal.


Cal Am officials may be feeling disillusioned with public-private partnerships. The Regional Desalination Project, Cal Am’s former deal with Monterey County Water Resources Agency and Marina Coast Water District, fell apart due to the project’s own dysfunction. 


Marina Coast is apparently still feeling stiffed. On April 30, the agency moved for the California Public Utilities Commission to dismiss Cal Am’s Water Supply Project, arguing the PUC-approved Regional Project is still the best way forward.


Cal Am’s effort to ditch its public partners may also be legally motivated. A Superior Court ruling found the PUC was the wrong agency to have prepared the environmental impact report for the Regional Project, which put Marina Coast in charge of the desal plant. By making itself the owner-operator of the desal plant in the Water Supply Project, Cal Am positions the PUC as the proper lead agency and sets the stage for a supplemental EIR – cheaper and more timely than a complete do-over.


In an April 18 letter to County Counsel Charles McKee, PUC attorney Frank Lindh contends the commission’s authority trumps county law. McKee says the county hasn’t formulated a response yet.


The county ordinance could be litigated, interpreted or repealed by the County Board of Supervisors, McKee says. That’s making the Water Supply Project a campaign issue, particularly for candidates in the two districts comprising the Monterey Peninsula. 


Fifth District candidates Carmelita Garcia, Marc Del Piero and incumbent Dave Potter all raise concerns about Cal Am’s proposal, and say they’d oppose a repeal of the county ordinance. Fourth District incumbent Jane Parker says she also stands firm behind the public ownership law; challenger Byrl Smith says she’d need more information before taking a position.


Still, Cal Am spokeswoman Catherine Bowie says the Water Supply Project is less risky than other contenders, including the People’s Project, a partnership between the city of Pacific Grove and Moss Landing-based company Desal America; and DeepWater Desal, a competing Moss Landing venture. She says those projects are too far behind on environmental, permitting and financing work to be online by December 2016, when the state intends to cut off 70 percent of Cal Am’s Carmel River supply.


“We believe that we can meet the deadline,” Bowie says. “That is dependent on not meeting unnecessary delays or legal challenges.”


But in waters this choppy, even Bowie expects challenges. George Riley of Citizens for Public Water, which intervened on the Regional Project, already has a litany of complaints about Cal Am’s approach. “They weren’t clear on the cost; they weren’t clear on the financing; they expect to use an old EIR that does not consider the two new Moss Landing competitors; they’re trying to escape the county ordinance that’s been the baseline for all the previous desal proposals,” he says. “They’re changing the ground rules for their benefit.”


Riley says he’s submitting his concerns to the Monterey Peninsula Regional Water Authority’s Technical Advisory Committee, of which he’s a member. The committee meets May 7. 


Sara Rubin contributed to this report.