Cal Am desalination test-well site construction underway

The future of the Monterey Peninsula’s water supply is one big step closer to completion. Construction is underway on California American Water’s desalination test-well site in Marina.

“It’s so gratifying to know that we’re closer to a solution than we’ve ever been,” said Catherine Stedman, Cal Am’s manager of external affairs.

The $4 million desalination research project aims to find out if this is the right way to solve the water shortage on the peninsula.

“The level of pumping we’re doing today just isn’t sustainable,” Stedman said.

Stedman added that the test-well site needs to be done by February ahead of the arrival of the snowey plovers.

The test site can check the groundwater basin impact, water quality and how much water can be pulled from the ocean. It’s just one leg of Cal Am’s three-pronged approach.

“We’ve made the desal component the smallest that it can be to save money for our customers,” Stedman said.

But that still means a 40 percent hike in rates by 2019, the proposed year the full project should be up and running, she said.

“We don’t know; it’s a big risk,” said George Riley, the managing director of Public Water Now. His group lost to Cal Am in the June election to make private water public.

“The state likes it, the environmentalists like it, I like it, but we’re asking Cal Am to solve our problem with a brand new engineering project,” Riley said.

Riley said he doesn’t like the idea of slant wells, which is the method Cal Am is using to pull the water in from the ocean.

“We ought to be very proactive and looking at an open ocean intake as an option. It’s cheaper, it’s quicker, it’s not as environmentally friendly, we know that, but we need water,” he said.

Cal Am agrees we need water, and said the slant-well method won’t have as great an impact on marine life.