Marina urges public to weigh in on Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project

Controversy over the Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project and the City of Marina wants you to help stop it.

California American Water is behind the project and says it’s necessary but Marina city officials say it will hurt their community.

A final environmental impact report was just released on the project and you can weigh in now. Cal Am says the report shows it won’t affect Marina but the city says its experts have a different take.

After years of pumping from the Carmel River, Cal Am was ordered to cut back, leading to the project.

“After years of study and vetting by many agencies, the project that we’re pursuing today has been determined to be the best and most environmentally sustainable option,” Catherine Stedman, a Cal Am spokesperson said.

But the city of Marina says it’s not the best option and Mayor Bruce Delgado says Cal Am has ignored other options that wouldn’t make them as much money.

“Marina is going to take the brunt of virtually all the adverse impacts and get not a drop of water,” Delgado said.

The mayor says the project will pump a large part of its water from under the city of Marina.

The water would be pumped to peninsula cities but not back to Marina.

Something Marina says will not just be unfair but unsafe.

CalAm says the environmental impact report, done independently by state employed experts says otherwise.

“What that study finds is that our project will not impact the groundwater basin in the Salinas Valley and that’s actually a conclusion that’s supported by many of the stakeholders in the Salinas Valley as well,” Stedman said.

Still, Delgado says the city’s own studies say something different.

“There’s also some inadequate analyses that says they’re not going to be taking our freshwater and they’re not going to be harming our coastal ecosystem and we just don’t think that’s true,” the Marina mayor said, “We have hydrogeologists, scientists that tell us that’s not true and we have Dr. Knight from Stanford who’s done extensive studies underground, below Marina showing that Cal Am is going to harm our freshwater and take our freshwater.”

For a link to the environmental impact report, click here.

To find out more about the water supply project, click here.