Coastal panel OK's pilot desal plant

By KELLY NIX

Published: December 15, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO — ACTING AGAINST the advice of its own staff, the California Coastal Commission late Thursday approved a pilot desal plant the California American Water Co. wants to build in Moss Landing.

The approval, on a dramatic 8-4 vote, came after Cal Am officials, representatives of the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, the Carmel River Steelhead Association and the Carmel River Watershed Conservancy, environmentalists and a handful of interested citizens waited all day for the commission to take up the matter. By dinner time — after hours of presentations about global warming and other items on the agenda — there had been no discussion by the coastal commission of the proposed desal plant. Once they took up the matter, the vote came fairly quickly.

When the day began, the coastal commission’s staff had buttressed its case that the commission should reject a permit for the plant because it would tap into a once-through cooling system at the Moss Landing power plant — a process kills marine organisms.

“The impacts of entrainment are horrific out in the ocean,” said commissioner Sara Wan, weighing in during an earlier discussion on a PG&E permit at the Diablo Canyon power plant. Cal Am cited studies from other biologists have shown the losses from entrainment are small and don’t have an effect on the aquatic ecosystem.

To bolster its position that the pilot plant shouldn’t be approved — outlined in a 23-page report two weeks ago — the coastal commission’s staff released an addendum Wednesday that described what it said were environmental and procedural concerns.

“An applicant for an operating permit,” the addendum stated, “must provide assurances that the facility will be owned and operated by a public entity.”

But Cal Am officials said they would ask the county board of supervisors to amend the public-ownership ordinance the coastal commission staff cited to justify its position.

“The original intent of the ordinance was to prevent small water systems without the technical, managerial and financial ability from operating desal plants as a supply for subdivisions,” said Catherine Bowie, Cal Am’s community relations manager.

Bowie said the county may amend the ordinance to require that anybody who owns or operates a desalination plant must have the technical, managerial and financial ability to do so.

The staff addendum also questioned the validity of the data Cal Am seeks to obtain from the pilot plant.

“The [Moss Landing] power plant alters the source water characteristics by heating the seawater and applying chemicals during its operations,” the addendum noted. “Therefore, much of the information that would be derived from the pilot facility would be of little use if applied to other alternative water sources that might be used by a full-scale facility.”

Bowie rejected the notion.

“What we will be testing is what happens with the water as we put it through a desalination process,” she said. “We’ll be replicating exactly what would happen in a full-scale desal facility.”

Several environmental groups, including Sierra Club and Surfrider Foundation, addressed the commission in support of the staff findings.

A few hours before the pilot plant was discussed, commissioners were peppered with information about the effects of global warming in a lengthy presentation on the phenomenon. And on Wednesday, they heard a report by a University of California Santa Cruz professor about the ills of impingement and entrainment associated with once-through cooling systems. The coastal commission staff recently expressed its concern about desalination plants’ effect on global warming because of their energy usage.

Widespread support

During the discussion, Cal Am reminded commissioners of 15 letters it received in support of the pilot plant, which would provide the Peninsula with a drought-free water supply and would eliminate illegal pumping from the Carmel River. The water company needs to find a replacement water supply for 50 percent of the Peninsula’s water use.

The letters’ authors included Congressman Sam Farr, the MPWMD, National Marine Fisheries Service, every Peninsula city and the State Water Resources Control Board, which ordered Cal Am in 1995 to stop pumping most of the water it has long taken from the Carmel River.

The watershed conservancy, which advocates for water quality and the river’s habitat, wrote that the habitat is “under attack from overpumping of the Carmel River and a general degradation on wildlife and aquatic species.”

The Monterey County Business Council reminded the commission that more than 60 water supply alternatives were analyzed by the state’s Public Utilities Commission, which ultimately recommended a desalination facility at Moss Landing.

In his letter to the coastal commission, newly elected Monterey Mayor Chuck Della Sala urged commissioners not to block what is merely a very preliminary phase of testing technology in order to meet “environmental requirements that — until they are solved — hold our community at perilous risk of inadequate access to a basic human need — water.”

More concerns

The commission staff’s report also claims Cal Am’s pilot plant proposal does not include “an assessment of water quality impacts to public health that may result from the discharge,” a detail it said is required for local coastal programs. The assessment should include various reports and biological surveys describing the “predicted effects of the discharge on nearby water bodies and biological resources,” and possible mitigation measures to address the impacts, the staff report said.

The 288,000-gallon-per-day pilot plant, currently sitting unused at the Moss Landing power station, is a crucial part of Cal Am’s Coastal Water Project, which also includes underground water storage in Seaside.

In August, Monterey County supervisors approved a permit for the pilot facility followed by a Sept. 15 appeal of the decision by commissioners Patrick Kruer and Mary Shallenberger. In October, the commission found the appeals raised a “substantial issue.”

The pilot operation, which would process seawater through two parallel pretreatment trains and reverse osmosis systems, would discharge various treatment and cleaning chemicals, polymers, coagulants, and other similar water treatment chemicals. Most of the contaminants would be routed to a sanitary sewer system, although some would be discharged into nearby coastal waters, according to the staff report.

Cal Am is joined by two other companies proposing solutions to the Peninsula’s water problems. Poseidon Resources Corp., in partnership with Pajaro/Sunny Mesa Community Services, also wants to build a desal facility in Moss Landing. (A permit application for a P/SM pilot plant has also been submitted to the coastal commission.) Meanwhile, a Florida outfit, Water Standard Company, has proposed using seawater conversion vessels as a method of desalination.

Earlier Thursday, the state’s Public Utilities Commission approved an increase in water rates Cal Am had been seeking for several years for its proposed Coastal Water Project, evidence of the water project’s importance, Cal Am said.

“I think it’s a validation we are going in the right direction,” said Bowie.

As a result of the PUC decision, water customers’ rates will go from $30 to $34 for the average household beginning Jan. 1, and increase significantly later, Bowie said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the rate increases would be have been affected if the coastal commission had blocked Cal Am’s desal project.