TWO WATER activists are asking an appeals court to halt installation of a test desal plant in Moss Landing after their lawsuit demanding public ownership of the pilot plant was thrown out by Monterey County Superior Court Judge Susan Dauphiné two months ago.

The suit, filed in January by George Riley and Manuel Fierro, contends the privately owned California American Water Co. can’t operate a pilot plant because of a 1989 county ordinance that requires all desalination facilities be publicly owned.

“We intend to appeal the trial court’s decision,” attorney Robert Rosenthal said Wednesday. “And we intend to pursue the rights of the ordinance and the obligations of the county to adhere to it.”

The pilot plant was OK’d by the Monterey County Board of Supervisors in August 2006. In December, the California Coastal Commission also approved a permit for the pilot plant. Both agencies said the public-ownership ordinance didn’t apply to a test desal plant.

In March, the county health department, which drafted the 1989 ordinance, called for its repeal. Director Allen Stroh recommended the public-ownership ordinance be amended to require that any agency or company be permitted to operate a desal facility if it possesses the “technical, managerial and financial capability” to do so.

Riley and Fierro’s attorneys have argued in court that such an amendment to the ordinance would require an environmental impact report.

Although the lawsuit contends the public could be at risk if the pilot operation isn’t publicly owned, critics of that position have said stopping a desalination plant is merely a way of trying to prevent growth in the county.

Cal Am’s pilot plant is a testbed for a much larger desalination plant, which would also be located in Moss Landing. The pilot operation, which is under construction, is expected to operate for one year.