… The lower Salinas Valley Basin is critically overdrafted, as growers have pumped unhindered for decades, and still do, despite the relentless intrusion of seawater into the aquifers. Meanwhile, in the Cal Am service area on the Peninsula, property owners haven’t been able to set new water meters—or upsize existing ones—since the state imposed a cease-and-desist order (CDO) against Cal Am in 2009 for the private utility’s illegal overpumping of the Carmel River. This, in turn, has exacerbated the Peninsula’s housing crisis. Yet even now that Cal Am is within its legal pumping limit, the CDO remains in place until the State Water Board rules on whether to lift it after the expansion of the Pure Monterey Water recycled water project comes online this year.
–Written by David Schmalz, opinion writer