Commentary: North County cheated by desalination proposal

From the Monterey County Herald, this commentary by North County resident Ed Mitchell:

North County community activists have dedicated years to be included in a regional water solution because we have neighbors without water, wells going dry, and families drinking from wells increasingly polluted with nitrate or arsenic.

So, I and others were stunned when we learned of the water desalination decisions made at a hastily called “special meeting” on March 23. It was composed of two supervisors and the mayors of Seaside, Sand City, Del Rey Oaks, Monterey, Pacific Grove; together with representatives from the Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency (MRWPCA), the Monterey County Water Resource Agency (MCWRA), and the Marina Coast Water District (MCWD).

This group decided to allow more overdrafting of the Salinas Valley basin by extracting brackish water from the 120-foot aquifer west of Armstrong Ranch, just a few miles southeast of the Castroville Saltwater Intrusion Project that injects water into the same basin.

The extracted water, polluted by salt from the ocean, would then be desalinated at a publicly owned plant near the Marina landfill. Eighty-five percent of the resulting potable water would be shipped to the Peninsula and 15 percent would be retained in-basin.

Read more of this commentary by clicking here.

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