Even Cal Am gets on board with asking for relief on the cease-and-desist.

The iceberg that is the cease-and-desist order on the Monterey Peninsula’s water supply may finally be melting.

A bit of background: Private utility California American Water delivers water to thousands of local taps. For decades, the company obtained most of that water by sticking a straw into the Carmel River – something that officials at the State Water Resources Control Board determined in 1995 was a violation of Cal Am’s legal limit to pump from the river.

Years of stop-and-start efforts began to get water some other way. By 2009, the state deemed Cal Am to still be in violation, and it issued a new cease-and-desist order, this one with teeth. New water meters are prohibited, a significant obstacle to building housing.

Conservation has increased and some new water projects, like Pure Water Monterey recycled water, have come online. Thanks to this combination, Cal Am is within its legal limit – and has been for four years. But the cease-and-desist order remains.

What’s shocking is that Cal Am has asked the state to keep it that way. It gives the company some leverage over advancing a desalination plant – something that would make a lot of water, yes, and would also make Cal Am a bunch of money. Cal Am argues that without desal, we simply don’t have enough water.

The Monterey Peninsula Water Management District has become Cal Am’s chief antagonist and last year, asked the State Water Board to modify the order. If we aren’t overpumping, the thinking goes, we should get a reprieve.

A long list of comment letters have been submitted to the State Water Board, the overwhelming majority of which support allowing new water meters.

“I own a vacant lot in Monterey,” one property owner wrote. “The [order is] impacting my ability to build a house. Please act as soon as possible.”

City officials, business owners and commercial property owners all have joined the chorus. “We must manage around the property’s remaining water rights, which can result in merchandising decisions being driven by water availability rather than market demand and the best use of the property,” Del Monte Center owners wrote.

What is new and different is that in the latest batch of testimony submitted on Aug. 20, Cal Am also joined the chorus of suggesting a modification of the cease-and-desist order. “[Cal Am] does not object to a temporary suspension of the moratorium,” Senior Manager David Pezzini wrote.

There are some major caveats in Pezzini’s ask. He wants the moratorium suspended just until July 1, 2030, on the condition that the desalination plant is online. (He claims it is on track to be operational by the end of 2029.)

I think it’s reasonable to believe any modification of the order is, by definition, temporary. The State Water Board is invested in protecting Carmel River flow and if consumption rises too much, the region will go back to water jail any time.

A short-term lifting makes sense, based not on one specific technological solution, but on actual usage. Modify the order to allow taps to flow, then bring down the hammer again if it’s needed in the future.

Otherwise, all we have is forecasts. (Unsurprisingly, each agency’s forecast supports its own conclusion. Cal Am expects we’re going to use tons of water on day one, while MPWMD expects modest growth.)

Lifting the order will give us real-world data to see what actually happens when there is no moratorium on setting new meters. Will there be a building boom? Will we all start taking longer showers? Instead of guessing, let’s use reality.

This is the same way MPWMD General Manager Dave Stoldt says he is thinking about the change – if the take of Carmel River water again exceeds the legally allowable limit because the forecasts undershot, the cease-and-desist would come back.

“We’re fine on continued quarterly and annual reporting, and reinstating the [cease-and-desist order] if we can’t handle the prosperity,” Stoldt says. “We’ve got to move this book off the fiction shelf to the reference shelf. Let’s actually look at what’s happening.”

It’s too soon to know if State Water Board members will agree, but given that even Cal Am is showing signs of capitulating to that reality, the odds seem pretty good.

SARA RUBIN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at sara@montereycountynow.com.