A ruling by a state appellate court against the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District could have what is being described as a minor impact on the district’s water supply efforts. The California Sixth District Court of Appeals sided with the Monterey Peninsula Taxpayers Association late last week in a lawsuit that claimed a fee charged to ratepayers should have been halted years ago. The legal issues are complex and involve many moving parts, but basically the district is charging two separate fees – a “users fee” that was collected as a pass-through on California American Water Co.’s bills and a “water supply fee.” The taxpayers association sued, arguing that based on the water district’s own ordinance, the water supply fee should have been sun-setted when the user fee was also being charged.