We don’t know what the state doesn’t want you to know about water.

On Nov. 17, 2014, Weekly Assistant Editor Kera Abraham sent a highly targeted Public Records Act request to the state Water Resources Control Board. With the Dec. 31, 2016, deadline for California American Water to stop overpumping from the Carmel River – under a state cease-and-desist order, that date triggers a 70-percent cutback on pumping – we knew local electeds and stakeholders in the hospitality industry were scrambling to get that deadline pushed back.

We wanted to know how hard they were scrambling and who they were pleading with, because we all know the cutback deadline may be impossible to meet.

The PRA Abraham sent requested all communications by email, fax, text, phone (via call logs) and in person (via appointment calendars) between any Water Resources Control Board member or staffer and any Monterey County elected official; Monterey County government agency representative; California American Water staff, contractors and lobbyists; desalination industry lobbyists; and state and federal officials representing Monterey County constituents.

Seemed straightforward to us: Who’s talking to whom, when and why?

Six weeks later, Abraham got a CD full of nothing that really addressed her questions, with a cover letter saying the state didn’t have to give us much of what we requested because of ongoing litigation.

THE STATE WATER BOARD’S PREMISE IS FICTION.

And that’s a huge problem – for us, for them and for the very concept of transparency in government. Local stakeholders have, to this date, sent the state water board at least three proposals to modify the river cutback schedule. The first two were flat-out rejected, Carmel Mayor Jason Burnett told Abraham. The most recent one, submitted in January, is still alive.

Burnett sketched out an outline of this latest proposal at the Jan. 8 mayors’ water authority meeting. At first he refused to give us a copy, saying in effect that he didn’t want to tick off the state water board.

That changed Feb. 9, when Abraham filed a direct Public Records Act request with the mayors’ water authority. After seeking approval from the dozen entities party to a 2009 lawsuit challenging the cease-and-desist order, Burnett and Jim Cullem, executive director of the mayors’ water group, gave us the proposal. (See story, p. 17.)

In a nutshell: Cal Am and the mayors are asking for a four-year extension to prevent a sudden cutback of much of the Peninsula’s water supply in 2016.

The documents we received Feb. 10 are a good start, but that’s all they are – a start. We still want to see the two rejected proposals, along with all the other communications between local officials and the state water board regarding our future water supply.

The state water board’s claim it’s withholding documents because of litigation doesn’t work, because that litigation doesn’t actually exist. It’s based on alawsuit Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, Cal Am, several Peninsula cities and others filed more than five years ago, challenging the cease-and-desist order.

The parties settled in 2012. That settlement included a “tolling agreement” letting the plaintiffs reactivate the lawsuit by July 2016 if no replacement water supply is online.

That still doesn’t make the state water board’s PRA exemption valid.

Kelly Aviles, an attorney with the government watchdog group Californians Aware, says documents withheld under litigation privilege have to be created for use in that litigation. We can’t see how the documents the state is withholding could fall into that category.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that exemption claimed and have it be valid,” Aviles says. “Many will try to use it, saying it relates to litigation that may be coming, but that doesn’t cut it.”

So on behalf of the Weekly, Aviles plans on sending a letter to the State Water Resources Control Board this week. We’re hammering out the vernacular, but basically the message will be, “We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way.”

The Public Records Act exists to ensure the government works for all of us. State Water Control Board, it’s time to let some sunshine in.

MARY DUAN is the Weekly’s editor. Reach her at mary@mcweekly.com or follow her at twitter.com/maryrduan. Assistant Editor Kera Abraham contributed to this report.