California PUC-Guided Development and Strategic Planning of Water Supply Alternatives for the Monterey Peninsula (1999-2001)

CONCUR was retained as a member of an independent planning team by the California Public Utilities Commission to develop water supply alternatives for the Monterey Peninsula. The impetus for this project was the Peninsula’s longstanding struggled with water supply issues The State Water Resources Control Board recently determined that the California American Water Company (Cal-Am), the entity that provides water to most of the Peninsula, is not legally entitled to 10,730 afy of the 17,641 afy the company currently diverts from the Carmel River. Cal-Am sought to address this exceedence by applying to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for approval to construct and operate a 24,000 acre-foot dam and reservoir on the Carmel River. This highly controversial dam proposal has twice been opposed in local referenda of the voters. In response, Assembly Bill 1182 (Keeley), directed the CPUC to develop a long-term contingency water supply strategy (Plan B) to be available in the event the proposed dam does not go forward for any reason.

CONCUR provided ongoing strategic planning advice to the CPUC and structured and implemented the public participation process. As part of this effort, CONCUR conducted interviews with a wide variety of stakeholders aimed at identifying their concerns, and prepared a detailed Public Participation Plan to help guide the CPUC in its outreach efforts, ensuring that pathways for public input were clearly defined, and project news broadly distributed. CONCUR organized and executed public workshops for each stage of the planning process: 1) Setting project goals and objectives, 2) Selecting candidate components (groundwater development, desalination, importation, legal strategies, and reclamation), and 3) Screening component s, and 4) Assembling a recommended Plan B. Plan B, recommending a mix of desalination and aquifer storage an injection strategies, was completed in the summer of 2002, and can be viewed at www.edaw.com/planb.