AFTER COUNTLESS spools of red tape and a one-year delay, the county’s planning department is set to issue California American Water Co. an administrative permit for its pilot desalination plant in Moss Landing.
News that Cal Am would be receiving the permit drew applause from the water company, which needs the pilot plant before it can build a much larger desal operation at the Moss Landing power plant.
“It’s a major milestone for us,” said Larry Gallery, senior vice president of RBF Consulting, which is working for Cal Am on the project.
The water company still needs to obtain a permit from the California Coastal Commission which could be issued as soon as July, Gallery said.
“It takes two months to assemble,” Gallery said of the pilot plant, which is expected to arrive in June. “So we are talking about starting it up in September or October.”
The pilot plant will pump 200,000 gallons of water from Monterey Bay each day, converting it to 90,000 gallons of potable water. The remainding 110,000 gallons will become briny discharge that will be pumped back into the ocean. The plant will occupy about .15 acres of land on the power plant’s 137-acre facility.
Cal Am applied for the permit in March 2005 and expected to receive it a few months later. But the planning department refused to issue the paperwork until Duke Energy complied with the terms of a mitigation plan to restore nearly 13 acres of wetlands to offset the environmental impacts of removing oil tanks from the property. The power company also had to post a $250,000 bond. Duke was bought out by LS Power Group in May.
Catherine Bowie, Cal Am’s community relations manager, said the company doesn’t expect it will face the same hurdles Pajaro/Sunny Mesa Community Services District encountered in its pursuit of the coastal commission permit.
After the planning department issued a pilot plant permit to P/SM, the coastal commission and Surfrider Foundation filed separate appeals, stalling the process to install the test plant.
“The reason we appealed is more procedural,” said Kaya Freeman, Surfrider’s Central California regional manager. “We were never notified of a public comment period for the pilot plant application. And [Pajaro/Sunny Mesa] didn’t provide a hydrology report for the appeal.”
The coastal commission also appealed the county permit, claiming P/SM didn’t provide adequate scientific studies and biological surveys to show the pilot plant’s intake and outfall effect on the environment.
But because LS Power has a current permit for the generating station’s intake and outfall, Cal-Am’s pilot plant should not encounter the same hurdles, Bowie said.
At the June 15 coastal commission meeting in Santa Rosa, commissioners should determine how far to go with the appeal of the P/SM pilot plant permit.
“If the commission finds there are substantive issues,” said Tom Luster, a coastal commission analyst, “we will look at the project in more detail and bring it back to the commission for a vote [on the project].”
If commissioners don’t find any issues, the appeal will be dropped, Luster said.
