Salinas Valley Worried about Desal Plans
California American Water
could threaten the ground water supply of the Salinas Valley where up to 60
percent of the vegetables and leafy greens are grown for the nation.
The water company, which
serves about 100,000 people on the Monterey Peninsula, was ordered 20 years ago
to reduce using their source of water from the Carmel River by 60 percent by
2016.
Norm Groot,
Executive Director of the Monterey County Farm Bureau, commented, “they’re searching
frantically to find an alternative source. Unfortunately, they have had twenty years
to do that and the voters haven’t really been necessarily sympathetic and voted
for their particular projects when they proposed them. So, now we are down to the
point where we are looking at a desalination plant that is supposedly going to replace
all that water from the Carmel River and there are a number of issues there too;
not only the cost, but the energy footprint and a number of other things that really
have some of the people here quite concerned right now.”
“The test well for the
proposed desal plant may be fairy close to the shore line,” Groot said, “but
any water taken from that well could impact the Salinas Valley. I think our biggest
concern is what is that cone of depression, which is a scientific term for the influence
that a source water intake has in a particular area. And because of the
confluences between the lower aquifer, which is the Salinas Valley Basin, and
the shallow aquifer that they are proposing to take the water from, we really
don’t know how large a cone of influence is going to be felt. And since the
actual aquifer itself goes off shore quite a distance, there is a potential for
some sort of impact there.”
“We’ve been involved in the
whole CPUC process for the Public Utilities Commission trying to insert our
particular viewpoints into the process” Groot explained, “so that everyone is
fully aware of what the ramifications are of placing the source water intakes over
the aquifer and really what happens if there is determination that the there is
harm and that they are pumping some sort of source water that includes Salinas
Valley, either brackish or fresh water.”
Labels: California Ag News, Norm Groot on Desal PlaNTS, Proposed Desalination Plant in Salinas Valley, Salinas Valley Worried About Desal plants