Quarterly Water Supply Strategy and Budget Report California American Water
Main Water Distribution
System: July – September 2020
1. Management Objectives
The Monterey Peninsula Water Management District (District) desires to maximize the long-term production potential and protect the environmental quality of the Carmel River and Seaside Groundwater Basins. In addition, the District desires to maximize the amount of water that can be diverted from the Carmel River Basin and injected into the Seaside Groundwater Basin while complying with the instream flow requirements recommended by the National Marine Fisheries (NMFS) to protect the Carmel River steelhead population. To protect the River, ASR water banked in the winter will be recovered in the summer months. To accomplish these goals, a water supply strategy and budget for production within California American Water’s (CalAm’s) Main water distribution system is reviewed quarterly to determine the optimal strategy for operations, given the current hydrologic and system conditions, and legal constraints on the sources and amounts of water to be produced.
2. Quarterly Water Supply Strategy: April - June 2020
On June 4, 2020, the Quarterly Water Budget Group comprised of representatives from the District, CalAm, the National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS), State Water Resources Control Board’s Division of Water Rights (SWRCB-DWR), and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) met and discussed the proposed water supply strategy and related topics for upcoming quarter.
Carmel River Basin CalAm will operate its wells in the Lower Carmel Valley in a downstream to
upstream sequence,
as needed to meet customer
demand. For this quarterly water budget, it was agreed that CalAm would stop producing water from the Upper Valley Wells
upon entering the “Low Flow” regime. To the maximum extent, pumping will
be shifted away from the river wells and Seaside native and banked ASR water
will be used to meet demand in the summer months. Any new sources of water reduce the water
available to be pumped from the river on a one to one basis consistent with SBO
2016-0016. The group decided that the
water savings between demand and legal supplies would be used to benefit the
Carmel River Basin and would be used to increase the amount of carry over
credit as described in the CDO.
Seaside Groundwater Basin CalAm will continue to produce water from the Coastal Subareas of the Seaside Basin during this period, as necessary to meet system demand and facilitate ASR diversions to storage. There is also a goal to produce 25 AF of treated brackish groundwater from the Sand City Desalination Plant in each of these three months. It is recognized that, based on recent historical use, CalAm’s production from the Laguna Seca Subarea during this period cannot be reduced to zero, as is set by CalAm’s allocation specified in the Seaside Basin Adjudication Decision. Under the amended Seaside Basin Decision, CalAm is allowed to use production savings in the Coastal Subareas to offset over-production in the Laguna Seca Subarea. The group decided to discontinue producing the budget table for the Laguna Seca area with the reasoning of the Adjudicated allotment has already been reduced to zero. CalAm is addressing this by constructing an interconnection with the Main System and working with the Seaside Watermaster to address any over pumping of the Seaside Groundwater Basin.
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