Board to hear competing desalination plans
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/9261747.htm
Just a bit of an fyi.
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/9261747.htm
Dueling desalination plans will enter a three-ring circus before the Peninsula water district board this week..
The Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, desperate for a water source to replace the Carmel River, will hear presentations from proponents of three desalination plants considered for coastal Monterey County, one in Sand City and two larger proposals for Moss Landing.
The major question facing the district is whether to pursue its own plant in Sand City -- an environmentally friendlier proposal, but one that would not solely solve the district's water problems -- or seek a partnership with one of the larger plants in Moss Landing.
The competition between those two proposals has provided some high drama this year that will no doubt increase in the months to come.
In a partnership with the county that has not yet been inked, the California-American Water Co. is proposing a plant that would use the intake and outflow pipes at Duke Energy in Moss Landing. It has identified three potential Moss Landing sites, including one on property owned by competitor Nader Agha.
Production capacity|
Steve Leonard, general manager of Cal-Am, said the plant is expected to produce 20,000 acre feet of water per year, the amount identified as necessary to fill the needs of the company's Peninsula rate payers, as well as the general plans of other jurisdictions in Monterey County.
Cal-Am is under state mandate to develop a new source of water to replace 10,730 acre feet it has been pumping illegally from the river annually for decades. An acre foot of water is enough to turn a football field into a foot-deep pond or to supply four average Peninsula homes for a year.
Cal-Am expects to have a pilot plant, producing 60,000 gallons of water a day, on the Duke property by next year. Until the water quality is tested, the water will be provided to Duke for production purposes.
Leonard said Cal-Am hopes to have the environmental impact report on the entire project ready for review by the fall of 2006, but he declined to estimate when the larger desalination plant could be online, or how much it might cost.
Cost estimate|
A cost estimate might be available by the end of July; as for a possible on-line target date, he said, "Five years is reasonable, but it's unpredictable."
One issue holding up progress may be the fact that Cal-Am and the Monterey County Water Resources Agency have yet to reach a formal agreement on their partnership.
Some critics of Cal-Am's proposal, including its competitors, have objected to a privately owned plant, especially one owned by a foreign company that might try to use international trade agreements to skirt local and state regulations.
Leonard said Cal-Am, a German-held company, has no intention of bypassing local regulations and every intention of building a desalination plant that will be publicly owned.
"We're working with the county to find a way where the county ultimately owns the plant," Leonard said. "We agreed that we are going to work toward an agreement and we have a draft going back and forth that we're nibbling and chewing on."
A county ordinance prohibits private ownership of desalination plants. The ordinance has never been tested legally.
Competitors|
Cal-Am's competitors, Agha and the Pajaro-Sunny Mesa Community Services District, have held up public ownership as an element that makes their proposal superior to Cal-Am's.
The Pajaro-Sunny Mesa district is proposing a plant at the site of the old National Refractories plant, which is now owned by Agha. The site is next door to Duke Energy and has its own intake and outflow pipes.
The plant would produce 21,000 to 25,000 acre feet a year, said district counsel Marc del Piero, and cost a total of between $135 million and $155 million for construction and water delivery.
Agha estimated the plant could be online in about 18 months.
Del Piero, a water use attorney and former State Water Resources Control Board member, has publicly warned various groups about the potential for foreign-held companies to use trade agreements to bypass local regulations.
Both he and Agha have touted their plan as a not-for-profit project to deliver water to the county for its 21st century needs.
"We think that controlling the water resources of Monterey County results in significant control of the economic viability of our county and we believe that is best left in the hands of the representatives of the people," del Piero said.
"Our heart and interest is in the community, not in profit," said Agha. "Water should not be abused and used to hold the users hostages for corporate bosses to fatten their pockets."
Leonard declined to enter the verbal fray, saying he didn't know if his project was better. But he touted the experience of Cal-Am's Spanish engineering firm, Pirdesa, which is owned by Cal-Am's parent company and has built many desalination plants around the world.
Del Piero said Pajaro-Sunny Mesa also is backed by a highly experienced engineering firm, Kennedy/Jenks, which also has built dozens of desalination plants.
One things is virtually certain, the California Coastal Commission and the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, both of which must sign off on any desalination plant on the bay, will approve only one desalination plant in the area.
Both of the proposals have environmental concerns not presented by the smaller Sand City plant that is favored by one of the district's directors, Kristi Markey.
While the Moss Landing plants would use huge intake pipes that kill virtually all marine life sucked in with the water, the Sand City plant uses beach wells and horizontal beach drilling to pull water from beneath the sand, thereby eliminating the "entrapment and impingement" problem.
In addition, the plant's capacity is so small that it doesn't present the growth-inducement problems that environmentalists fear in the larger plants.
The district had pursued the project fairly far down the environmental-review path, nearing the point where it would complete a draft environmental impact report, when the pro-growth-dominated board put it on the back burner.
Henrietta Stern, the staff member overseeing the project, said the district's new general manager, David Berger, wants to make a decision on which plant the district will pursue by September.
Just a bit of an fyi.
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