The groundwater level in northern Monterey County keeps sinking. For Carolyn and Gene Anderson, who share a well with five neighbors in the unincorporated Royal Oaks area, 10 miles southwest of Moss Landing, this is just one source of worry. Eleven years ago, their mutually owned well had to be closed because high levels of nitrates were found in it. They dug again—much deeper. According to the Monterey County Public Health Department’s Environmental Health Division, every year a dozen or more north county wells go dry or are contaminated by nitrates or saltwater intrusion.

“Everyplace north of Salinas has severe overdraft problems, pulling more water out of the ground than is recharging,” according to County Supervisor Louis Calcagno. “Because of overdraft there is saltwater intrusion. We’re limiting our development because of the water shortage.” All households in unincorporated areas of north county draw on groundwater, mostly from privately owned wells. All treated wastewater from the Monterey Peninsula, Castroville, Fort Ord, Seaside, and Marina is being recycled, irrigating 12,000 acres of agriculture. Yet the water shortage is getting worse.

The Andersons, retired public service employees, are diligent in conserving. The tap goes off once the toothbrush is wet. Showers are short affairs. The washing machine gets a run only when the lid falls off the clothes basket. They hope their well will last.

Early this year, they heard that California-American Water Company (Cal-Am) was planning to build a $190 million desalination plant at Moss Landing, beside the Duke Energy power plant and Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve. The desalted water would be piped south to the company’s 35,000 customers in Monterey, Carmel, Carmel Valley, Pacific Grove, Sand City, Pebble Beach, and Seaside.

Carolyn Anderson was alarmed. “They’re going to plunk it down in our backyard, and yet our community is not expected to get any of the water from it—only the negative impacts,” she said. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

Calcagno, a dairy rancher on Elkhorn Slough, agrees: “You’re not going to come into north county, build a desal plant, and move the water to another area without considering the needs of this area.” The project had been moving ahead without the community’s input, he said. “We didn’t know. The supervisors, Moss Landing Marine Lab, the Moss Landing Harbor District were not consulted.”

Cal-Am, the main water supplier for the Monterey Peninsula, had been looking for a new water source since the State Water Resources Control Board (WRCB) found, in 1995, that Cal-Am “does not have a legal right to” about 69 percent of the water supplied to its customers. Two dams on the Carmel River had lost most of their storage capacity to silting in, and groundwater that would have flowed to the river was being tapped by Cal-Am wells. The river was going dry, undermining steelhead restoration efforts. The WRCB told Cal-Am to find new sources.

The company first proposed building another dam, but in the face of strong opposition and with support from the State Public Utilities Commission (PUC), it turned to desalination instead.

North county is primarily agricultural, Carolyn Anderson points out, and it tends to get things that would not be tolerated in other communities, such as wrecking yards and power plants. Four years ago she co-founded a watchdog group, North County Citizens Oversight Coalition, to give residents a stronger voice in county planning. With the desal project looming, she rallied the members to speak out.

In February, a public forum to discuss the proposed plant filled the Grange Hall in Prunedale. Cal-Am came, as did agency representatives, scientific advisors, and Calcagno. Some people thought the plant might be helpful, if the area could hook in. Others figured that the cost of doing that would be too high. (Presently, people with private wells don’t pay for water, only for the cost of pumping.) Fears were expressed that the availability of new water would encourage new development without adequate planning, further depleting water supplies. And finally, there was concern about potential impacts on the Elkhorn Slough Research Reserve with its varied and delicate habitats.

In October, Cal-Am spokesperson Kevin Tilden said that the environmental impact study has just begun. He added: “We want to consult with the community every step of the way.”

Since the February meeting, Calcagno said, there have been further discussions with Cal-Am and PUC staff. “We want the option to pull water from [the plant],” he said. “We are increasing our population. We have the world’s best ground, the best agriculture—there’s not a For Sale sign on any ranch in the county; and we have tourism. Both those industries need affordable housing for labor.” Whether desalted water would help meet that need is an open question.

Solution or Problem?

The desal controversy in north Monterey County is only one of many along the California coast. About two dozen plants are currently in various stages of planning, in San Diego, Dana Point, Los Angeles, Cambria, Fort Ord State Park, Sand City, Santa Cruz and Marin Counties, and elsewhere. Plants proposed for Huntington Beach and Carlsbad are twice the size of the largest plant in North America, which went into operation in March in Tampa Bay, Florida. Each would supply 112,000 households.

If all the proposed projects go ahead and operate successfully, they could produce a total of 220,000 acre-feet of water a year—enough to supply up to 440,000 families of four. (An acre-foot equals 326,000 gallons, or one acre of water one foot deep.) Although that would satisfy no more than a small fraction of California’s water needs, the consequences to the coast and ocean could be significant.

“In some areas along the coast, desalination could remove what may be the single largest constraint to growth: a limited supply of potable water,” states a 56-page report published by the Coastal Commission in August. “Some desalination facilities may be operated in an environmentally benign manner, others could cause significant adverse effects.” Because some plants could help ease the strain on local rivers or groundwater, the report recommends a case-by-case investigation of each plant.

In September, the Coastal Commission unanimously approved a small experimental plant in Long Beach with the goal of getting some answers to the questions being raised, according to Tom Luster, environmental specialist at the Commission. Among these are issues of cost and who pays for the plant, citizen participation in deciding how the water is distributed, energy use, impacts on efforts to conserve water, and concerns about control and oversight. Cal-Am, for example, is owned by the German company RWE, one of the three largest international water companies in the world.

The Commission’s report expresses significant concern about provisions of some international trade agreements that exempt companies that operate internationally from local and state regulations if those regulations are found to restrict free trade.

Why Now?

In the past, only dry countries such as Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Spain were willing to pay the cost the process required. In the United States—especially in Texas, California, and Florida—desalination was used primarily to clean brackish ground water for farm use. Then came the California drought of the early 1990s, when the cities of Santa Barbara and Morro Bay built the first large plants to supply drinking water. Santa Barbara’s plant was never used and is now decommissioned, and Morro Bay’s is used only intermittently.

Within the past decade, however, the cost of desalting seawater has dropped dramatically, stimulating new interest in this process as one response to the state’s ever more acute water problems.

Shirley Skeel, a freelance writer based in Berkeley, covered utilities for Bloomberg News in London.