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PEBBLE BEACH CO. PROPOSAL TO SELL "ENTITLED" WATER

From the Monterey County Herald
Serving Monterey County and the Salinas Valley

Posted on November 25, 2003

Pebble Beach plan to sell water passes
by JONATHAN SEGAL
jsegal@montereyhearald.com

A $22 million plan allowing the Pebble Beach Co. to sell water rights to find an overhaul of the community's water-recycling program passed the Peninsula's water board unanimously on Monday.

But the act could be coming back for reconsideration as early as next month, when the newly elected Monterey Peninsula Water Management District Board of Directors is seated. As board member Alvin Edwards entered his "yes" vote, he exclaimed that the measure would be reconsidered soon.

Pebble Beach Co. representatives and others had asked the board Monday to postpone its action on the measure, because the draft of the ordinance passed Monday included restrictions on prospective water buyers. Those restrictions, the company said, will make it difficult to sell the water rights.

"We need time to study it," said Mark Stilwell, the Pebble Beach Co.'s executive vice president.

The proposal allows the Pebble Beach Co. to sell 150 acre-feet of water -- enough to supply 600 average Peninsula homes for a year -- to pay for improvements to a failed water-recycling program.

The sale would be limited to residential property owners in the Del Monte Forest. It could lead to new-home construction on 140 lots in the community. It could also allow the owners of 2,700 existing Pebble Beach homes to add on to their houses.

Under the measure, Pebble Beach would sell the water rights for prices between $150,000 and $175,000 an acre-foot, making it several times more expensive than the water district's $20,000-an-acre-foot price.

Pebble Beach would use the profits from the water sale to raise $22 million to pay for improvements to the community's water recycling program. The improvements include new machinery to desalinate recycled water and money to reopen the Forest Lake reservoir.

The improvements are necessary because the recycled water project never worked like it was intended. The system was supposed to provide recycled water from the toilets and sinks of Carmel and Pebble Beach to water the community's golf courses, including Cypress Point and the Pebble Beach Golf Links.

But the water that came from the project was too salty and damaged the golf courses. Additionally, the project did not produce enough water to irrigate the courses. For those two reasons, the golf courses required drinking water from the California-American Water Co.'s system to continue to function.

The 1989 ordinance that established the program left the water district legally responsible for the project's performance. Several golf courses in the community, Monterey Peninsula Country Club, Poppy Hills and Cypress Point, had threatened to sue the water district for damages.