Peninsula voters, famously fed up with California American Water Company’s rates and decrepit local water system, will get to weigh in on a public buyout of the private system. On June 21, the water board approved a November ballot measure that will ask voters if the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District (MPWMD) should “be directed to investigate the cost and process to publicly acquire the Cal Am system.”  

“It’s the kind of decision that, if ultimately we went forward and purchased Cal Am, we would need the community’s full support, so it’s a good idea to include them in step one,” says MPWMD Director Kristi Markey, one of the five who voted to support the ballot measure.

Directors Alvin Edwards, Michelle Knight, Judi Lehman and Dave Potter also voted in favor of the measure. Directors David Pendergrass and Larry Foy, a former Cal Am general manager, voted against it. Both Foy and Pendergrass, along with Cal Am spokespeople, have warned that local ratepayers would not be able to afford a buyout.

No one knows how much money a public takeover would cost Peninsula residents.

But, says Lehman, “with the rates Cal Am is asking us for, isn’t it fiscally irresponsible if we don’t look into purchasing their delivery system?”

“I believe there’s going to be a lot of rhetoric and outlandish numbers,” she says. “As people are more educated to what Cal Am should have been doing, they may be enraged, or at least curious, as to why they haven’t maintained their current operations better.”

Despite the November ballot measure, Cal Am spokesman Kevin Tilden says that the water company will continue with business as usual.

“I don’t anticipate it has any affect on us,” he says. “Since it’s advisory, it doesn’t affect our business at all.”

When asked if Cal Am would campaign against the ballot measure, Tiden said no.

It all sounds very familiar to Scott Boyd, who helped lead the public buyout of the Cal Am water system in Montara and Moss Beach, coastal towns in San Mateo County.

The equipment was leaky and antiquated and yet residents’ water bills continued to skyrocket.

“Water pressure, quality and supply were all big problems,” says Boyd, the president of the now publicly-owned Montara Moss Beach Water and Sanitary District. “[Cal Am] was obviously not putting money back into the water system.”

In 2001, Montara and Moss Beach voters overwhelmingly authorized the issue of bonds—up to $19 million—to purchase and rehabilitate the water system. A year later, the public takeover was ordered by the state Public Utilities Commission as a condition of Cal Am’s purchase by Germany’s RWE/Thames Water, one of the three largest water companies in the word.

“Nothing about this was easy,” Boyd says. “But instead of having money squeezed out of us, little by little, with the rate increases, we decided to open up our wallets and make the big down payment. In Montara, they left us with a system that demands repairs. We won’t be spending money at the rate we’re spending it now forever.”

According to a study by a Berkley-based financial consulting firm, Montara customer’s water rates will “cross over” in 2008, meaning that by that time, customers will pay less money annually than they would have under a Cal Am owned system.

Meanwhile, the new, publicly-owned water company continues to fix the leaks, and repair and build water mains, pipes, treatment plants and a nitrate removal system, among other projects.

“If I go down to the post office, I had better be ready to hear someone ask, ‘How’s our water situation looking?’ Try that with a director of RWE in Germany,” Boyd says. “We bump into our neighbors all the time. If they don’t like they way we’re doing our job, they elect someone else. We get to handpick the people who are going to be making the financial decisions. And if we don’t like them, we’ll elect new ones.”

Scott Boyd and Molly Erickson, a former chair of the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District’s Board of Directors, will speak on “Creating Clarity out of a Murky Water Situation” at the Carmel Area Democratic Women’s Club, 11:30am-1:30pm, June 28 at La Playa Hotel in Carmel. $28/person. 626-1610 to reserve a seat.