Squid watches the mayors' water board get waterboarded by the CPUC.

Water Torture…In the event Squid is in need of comedic inspiration, Squid often turns to the classics on Squid’s bookshelf, like Candide or Catch-22, or perhaps Portnoy’s Complaint or Straight Man.

But when Squid delves into the realm of Monterey Peninsula water supply woes, the need for that kind of inspiration is rare.

At the April 14 meeting of the Monterey Peninsula Regional Water Authority—a board comprising the Peninsula’s mayors—the mayors got a long-awaited opportunity: An audience with officials from the California Public Utilities Commission.

The CPUC is the lead agency for California American Water’s desalination project’s environmental impact report, and the meeting was a chance for the mayors to goose the CPUC into speeding that process up, which has been delayed, again.

A little back story: The draft EIR was supposed to be finished this spring, but when beach erosion exposed the outfall pipe for Cal Am’s test slant well in March, forcing Cal Am to shut down the test well (again), the CPUC dramatically revised the EIR schedule, pushing it back several months.

The new schedule projects the final EIR being released in September 2017, which delays the project almost a year, forcing Cal Am to apply for a five-year extension (instead of four-year) of the state’s cease desist order, which requires Cal Am to curtail most of its pumping of the Carmel River by January 1, 2017.

Yep, gonna miss that deadline by several years.

The workshop with CPUC officials began with words from Carmel Mayor Jason Burnett, who has been chair of the authority for years, and who is leaving office later this month after not running for re-election.

Burnett told the officials that the delays in the Cal Am project were out of the control of both the public and the elected officials, and that the CDO would detrimentally affect the community at large, so please pretty please can you give us an extension.

As for the Cal Am EIR, Burnett said the authority is “looking for any steps that can be taken to tighten up the schedule.”

CPUC Water Division Director Rami Kahlon responded that he has passionately argued for the CDO extension in the past, and is optimistic the CPUC would extend it. But as for the Cal Am EIR, not so much.

“The schedule we have today, this is the best we can do,” Kahlon said.

The mayors then all got a chance to chime in, and aired their thoughts about the region’s ever-elusive new water supply.

“It’s insane, it’s like Alice through the looking glass,” said Del Rey Oaks Mayor Jerry Edelen. “It gets more and more bizarre as we go along.”

Edelen recalled a man in the Persian Gulf who built a giant desal plant with the snap of his fingers, and lamented it wasn’t so easy in Monterey Bay, because people are worried about “critters, even though we take millions of tons of seafood.”

Speaking a few minutes later, Sand City Mayor David Pendergrass piggy-backed on Edelen’s “critters” theme, and urged an extension of the CDO.

“It’s important the people come first, not the animals,” Pendergrass said. “Earth was built for man.”

As a cephalopod, Squid disagrees, but also, the earth was “built?” Hmmm.

The CPUC officials understood the mayors’ concerns, they really did, and they let the mayors know it.

“This is on us,” said Jason Reiger, CPUC assistant general counsel. “There are things we control, and there are thing we do not control, but this is not on you, emphatically.”

Then it was the public’s turn to chime in. None was more memorable than Gary Cursio, an executive committee member of the Monterey County Hospitality Association and president of Monterey Golf Management Group.

“This cease and desist order is literally the equivalent of a nuclear bomb being dropped on the Monterey Peninsula, and that’s not an exaggeration,” Cursio said.

Really? Is Cursio “literally” going to be vaporized by a nuke, or is the local economy “literally” going to suffer?

Burnett then went to explain that Cal Am opted for subsurface slant wells, an unproven technology, because the company was trying to comply with regulatory agencies.

“Other communities are looking at our experience, and they’re learning from it. And right now, our experience is one of frustration,” Burnett said, who again asked that the EIR schedule be accelerated. “The perfect should not be the enemy of the good, and I think we have a very good EIR.”

But the CPUC officials wouldn’t budge.

Reiger said they would look and see if any time savings could be made in the process, but his colleague Mary Jo Barak wasn’t optimistic on that front.

“We’ve made it as tight as we can make it without taking excessive legal risk,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does have to be very good, and legally defensible.”

Burnett then asked if there was anything that could be done to expedite the Pure Water Monterey groundwater replenishment project, which he prefaced with an unexpected turn of a phrase.

Burnett: “I'm trying phrase this so it's not ‘will you stop beating your wife’ questions…"

Whoa!

Reiger said the CPUC was reviewing the EIR for the project’s pipeline, and that there’s a small chance it might have to be amended.

The mayors seemed to let out a collective groan.

“I see no right for you to look at it. It was approved!” Pendergrass lamented. “I don’t understand why you would open that process again. To me, you have no right to do that.”

Reiger would not be swayed.

“Let me clarify. I don’t have a right, I have a legal obligation,” Reiger said.

Unless a special meeting is called later this month, the meeting will mark Burnett’s final appearance behind the dais of the water authority, where he will be replaced by Carmel mayor-elect Steve Dallas.

And even though some in Carmel—including the Carmel Pine Cone and former mayor Sue McCloud—said it was critical to vote for Ken Talmage for mayor because of his experience with water issues, and that voting for Dallas was tantamount to voting for the sky to fall, the officials from CPUC didn’t seem to care too much about Carmel’s politics and—surprise!—they would still advocate for an extension of the CDO despite Dallas getting elected.

Phew! Squid was worried, and can now abandon Squid’s plans for a deep sea bomb shelter.