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Cal Am deserves a little more time, says Herald editorial

Posted by: Maven on August 31, 2009 at 12:48 pm

From the Monterey County Herald, this editorial:

“A sizable percentage of people living or working on the Peninsula have built up a fair amount of animosity toward California American Water, also known as Cal Am, also known as “the blankety-blank water company.”

Some of it is deserved. For much of its time in this community, the subsidiary of a giant European conglomerate operated with little apparent understanding that it is a public utility, a regulated monopoly making money by selling a public resource. Even relatively unpopular utilities such as Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Edison have generally done a better job of acknowledging that they operate with special protections that carry special obligations to consider the public interest.

Some of the animosity is undeserved. Cal Am has labored amid more political, bureaucratic, economic and environmental handicaps than most companies ever encounter and has, reluctantly perhaps, started to understand that it has a stake in keeping its principal source of raw material, the Carmel River, reasonably healthy.

Now, regardless of how anyone feels about the company, it is in the community’s interest to unite with the water purveyor in opposition to the State Water Resources Control Board’s proposed cease-and-desist order, which would greatly reduce the amount of water Cal Am could draw from the struggling river. …”

Read more of this editorial from the Monterey County Herald by clicking here.

August 31, 2009 · Filed Under Bay Area

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