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AN APPEAL by a Southern California environmentalist over California American Water Co.’s county-issued pilot desalination plant permit is flawed and should be rejected by county supervisors, a consultant to the water company contends.

Conner Everts, co-chair of the Santa Monica-based Desal Response Group, filed the appeal in July claiming the pilot plant will harm marine life.

But RBF Consulting, on behalf of Cal Am, contends the appeal should be thrown out because Everts misrepresented his title, filed the paperwork too late and didn’t participate in a July 13 public hearing required by the county to file such an appeal.

“I think they are trying to nit-pick some of this,” Everts countered.

In an Aug. 9 letter to the Monterey County Planning and Building Inspection Department, RBF cited a county code stating that persons who “fail to participate in the hearing either orally or in writing shall not have the right to appeal.”

RBF also said Everts attempted to “piggyback” a letter Surfrider Foundation submitted to the county a day before the July hearing, outlining reasons the permit should not be granted. The Surfrider letter was not a appeal.

“Conner Everts did not to participate in the hearing; he was not a co-signer on the Surfrider letter and did not testify separately,” RBF wrote. “Therefore he does not have the right to appeal.”

But Everts told The Pine Cone he submitted the appeal on behalf of the Desal Response Group, a coalition of which he said Surfrider is a member.

“We are all part of the effort to come up with a better desal plant, both statewide and locally in the Monterey Bay,” he said.

But because the appeal does not make clear that Everts represents the Desal Response Group or that Surfrider is part of the group, RBF contends Everts misrepresented his identity on the appeal form.

“Everts did not identify his interest in the decision,” RBF noted. “Therefore, the board of supervisors should not accept his appeal.”

The board of supervisors at its Aug. 29 meeting in Salinas is set to decide whether or not to accept Everts’ appeal.

RBF and Cal Am also contend the Surfrider letter didn’t address specifically what impacts Cal-Am’s pilot plant would have.

The letter “was general in regards to the once-through cooling process used by most coastal power plants and did not make specific identification of how these concerns apply to [Cal Am’s] proposed temporary pilot desalination facility,” RBF said.

Cal Am will use information from the pilot test plant for its proposed full-scale Coastal Water Project, a desal plant in Moss Landing that would provide a drought-free supply to the Monterey Peninsula while eliminating illegal pumping from the Carmel River.

“The pilot facility is very small and will only operate at 0.02 to 0.01 percent of the capacity of the full-scale facility,” said Catherine Bowie, Cal Am’s community relations manager.

Everts also denied an accusation by RBF that he didn’t turn in the appeal on time. “We were tight on the deadline, but we got it in,” he said.

The county requires an appeal be complete and comply with all requirements in order for supervisors to accept it. The board of supervisors at its Aug. 29 meeting in Salinas is set to decide whether or not to accept Everts’ appeal.