With billions in state surplus, Monterey County looks to Sacramento for water funding help.

California is poised to have a record budget this year and tucked into Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $286.4 billion spending proposal for fiscal year 2022-23 is about $21 billion in extra cash that will be up for grabs. Monterey County is jumping into the scrum, hoping the state can set hundreds of millions of dollars aside to help finance three critical water projects for the Salinas Valley and South County.

Brent Buche, general manager of the county’s Water Resources Agency, calls the surplus situation a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to get major funds from the state. The county is not holding back. Among some facility asks, they are going after $312 million to finance three key water projects.

The priority water project is $150 million for deferred maintenance on the dams at the Lake San Antonio and Lake Nacimiento reservoirs. The state has given Monterey County until November 2024 to update the spillway at Lake San Antonio – the vent through which water from the reservoir is released. The spillway works but Buche says officials are concerned about structural quality.

Following the February 2017 failure of the Oroville Dam spillway, forcing the evacuation of nearly 200,000 downstream residents in Northern California, the state strengthened dam oversight. If Monterey County does not meet the 2024 deadline, the state can reduce the amount of water allowed to be stored in Lake San Antonio.

At Lake Nacimiento’s dam, the state wants an analysis on the dam’s structural stability. Buche says when the dam was built in the 1950s, a flood washed out some of the early foundation. “The dam has never not been stable,” Buche says, but the state wants geological proof, which will require drilling to the foundation for samples.

Out of the $312 million ask, the county also wants $150 million to finance the long-planned interlake tunnel that would connect Lake Nacimiento to Lake San Antonio. Lake Nacimiento is more reactive to major rain events than San Antonio, and sometimes water that could be captured is lost to overflow. The interlake tunnel, proposed since the 1970s, would allow Lake Nacimiento to send overflow water to San Antonio, allowing the county to store up to 36,000 acre-feet beyond current levels – a critical addition as California gets drier.

The final water ask is $12 million for the proposed San Lucas Clean Drinking Water Project, a nearly eight-mile pipeline to connect San Lucas, a small South County community that has suffered water quality issues since 2006, to the Cal Water system.

Residents there have been under bottled water orders for eight of the last 10 years – consistently since 2016 – due to unsafe levels of nitrates found in the groundwater, says Melanie Beretti with the county’s Housing and Community Development Department. The independent San Lucas Water District owns the system, but the county has taken the lead in finding long-term solutions.

County officials are expected to meet with the state legislature’s Monterey County delegation on Friday, Feb. 11 to make a final pitch for a piece of the surplus pie.