Monterey Peninsula Water Management District Government News

David Schmalz here. There’s a lot going on in the world right now, and in the chaos it can be hard to focus on the brass tacks.
But ultimately, it’s the details that matter when it comes to governance, and that’s very much the case when it comes to our local water supply, regardless of where you live in the county.

Water woes on the Monterey Peninsula go back for decades. In 1995, the State Water Resources Control Board issued Order 95-10, declaring that California American Water was entitled to take only 3,376 acre-feet of water a year from the Carmel River. The utility at the time was taking about 14,000 acre-feet to supply the region.

The company is asking a judge to dismiss the water district's eminent domain takeover, arguing that "the district is not legally authorized to provide retail potable water service."

It’s been an eventful few months for the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District in its yearslong effort to potentially buy out California American Water, an investor-owned utility.

Just past 9am, a small team of employees from the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District begin staging equipment along a stretch of the Carmel River, just upstream from the Sleepy Hollow Steelhead Rearing Facility.

It's not the beginning, or the end—it’s the middle of the middle.

The expansion of the recycled water project Pure Monterey, which will provide an additional 2,250 acre-feet of water to the Monterey Peninsula, can finally move forward as Cal Am has signed an agreement to purchase its water.

In the coming months, or coming years, Cal Am ratepayers could see a surcharge on their water bills disappear. Or, maybe not.

There is a story of water supply on the Monterey Peninsula that Cal Am executives like to tell. Project after project, over decades, has been knocked down by the public, the villain in this story. The company has persisted in…

The future water supply of the Monterey Peninsula got a big boost Sept. 30 when Anne Simon, an administrative law judge appointed by the California Public Utilities Commission, issued a proposed decision that, if approved by the CPUC next month,…

Although the debate over desalination as a water supply has been an ongoing fight across the Monterey Peninsula for the better part of the 21st century, the issue was pushed to the collective backburner over the last two years as…

After initially turning away California American Water’s application for its desalination plant as incomplete, the state commission says the water utility has filled the gaps in its application.

Growing impatient with the crop of political and legal obstacles in its way, the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District’s board of directors unanimously voted Aug. 15 to step on the accelerator in carrying out the voter-supported effort to buy out…

Third time does the harm.

Maybe you’ve been wondering why Gen. Jim Moore Boulevard is being torn up right now, and what’s up with the massive pipe sections being staged on its median. The answer to both of those questions is at least in part…