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Roughly a half-dozen agencies, governments and a nonprofit group have filed briefs with a state regulator that could determine whether or not California American Water Co. gets the OK for its years-long effort to build a desalination plant on the Monterey Peninsula.
Many of the testimonies were highly technical, but came down to which contrary estimates of water supply and future demand will Judge Haga believe.
In January 2022, the Local Area Formation Commission, or LAFCO, denied the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District’s petition for what’s called the district’s latent powers to buy out Cal Am’s local infrastructure.
One of the Coastal Commission’s conditions is approval by the CPUC before the desal project can break ground. But in the Coastal Commission’s staff report recommending approval, it concludes that while the Pure Water Monterey Expansion will produce enough water in the short term to meet growth demands, in the long run an additional water source will “likely” be needed.
Outside of rare situations involving historic water rights, the State Water Board has prohibited California American Water from setting new water meters – or upsizing existing ones – since it