A COALITION of local hotels, restaurants and other business interests contends the desal plant proposed to supply the Monterey Peninsula with water should be much larger to support the hospitality industry, make it possible to build on existing lots of record and generally make the Peninsula a better place to live.

In a Nov. 9 letter to the California Public Utilities Commission, the Coalition of Peninsula Businesses requests that the CPUC study the possibility of an alternate, larger desal plant to the facility California American Water proposes in North Marina.

“In order for [Cal Am] to adequately serve its customers, CPB strongly recommends that a significantly larger desalination plant be added to the project alternatives to be studied in the EIR,” according to the letter to the CPUC.

As proposed, Cal Am’s desal project would supply only enough to replace water being illegally taken from the Carmel River without providing any for lots of record, infill, business expansions or home remodels, something the business coalition wants to change.

The coalition’s bid is contrary to a request from development-wary group LandWatch Monterey County, which earlier this year sent a letter to the CPUC telling the agency that Cal Am’s desal plant would, in fact, provide too much water and could lead to “induced growth.”

LandWatch also advocated for the “smallest possible project” and said any project seeking to provide water for growth should be first analyzed by the CPUC.

However, the coalition told the CPUC that the construction of a “true regional water supply project, one that will finally satisfy our decades-long water shortage, is an opportunity that will not, in all probability, present itself again.”

The letter, sent to CPUC analyst Andrew Barnsdale, went on to say that the CPUC would be remiss if it didn’t analyze a “build-out” alternative in the environmental impact report for Cal Am’s project.

“The Monterey Peninsula has been deprived of normal social and economic activity  — e.g., home remodels, business innovations and changes driven by customer preferences — for at least [two decades] due to these constraints and water restrictions,” according to the group.

The coalition’s members include the Monterey County Hospitality Association; Carmel, Monterey and Pacific Grove chambers of commerce; the Monterey County Association of Realtors, and Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula.

Coalition consultant Bob McKenzie told The Pine Cone the group still supports Cal Am as the developer of the desal plant but envisions a facility that could possibly be expanded in phases to produce more water, much the way that the defunct regional desalination project was designed.

The group’s co-chair, John Narigi, vice president and general manager of the Monterey Plaza Hotel, said a larger capacity desal plant would also likely lower the cost.

“I am hoping that the CPUC will state to Cal Am, ‘You need to build a larger plant now,’” Narigi said this week.

The local hospitality and tourism industries, according to the CPB, have just begun to recover from the economic downturn, while hotel occupancies are still over six percentage points below historical averages.

“It is an industry that accounts for $2 billion in economic activity, provides 22,000 jobs and provides a significant tax base for its communities,” according to the group. “The sizing of the [water] projects must be sufficient to allow the industry, employment and tax base to return to historical levels.”

Cal Am community relations manager Catherine Bowie said the company was aware of CPB’s request to the CPUC.

“The Public Utilities Commission needs to look at a variety of inputs in determining the ultimate size of the plant,” Bowie told The Pine Cone. “And certainly, lots of record and future economic predictions for the area are very important factors to be considered in determining the plant’s size.”

In all, the CPB argues the Peninsula’s total need for water is 20,726 acre-feet per year, which includes 1,181 acre-feet to satisfy lots of record, 4,545 acre-feet to meet the needs of the local general plans 15,000 acre- feet of water for existing needs.

Cal Am’s proposed $400 million project includes a desal plant in Marina, underground water storage and a project to turn wastewater into drinking water.

But the water storage project, a partnership between Cal Am and the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, is “inherently unreliable,” according to the coalition, because it would depend on excess winter flows from the Carmel River, which vary every year.

“No reliance on this as a source of supply should be made,” it said.

And the wastewater component is also unreliable because of the MRWPCA’s board of directors’ recent vote against future funding of the project due to uncertainties over water rights.

Cal Am has proposed building a larger, 9 million-gallon-per-day desal plant if the wastewater component doesn’t come to fruition. The project currently calls for a 5 million-gallon-per-day desal plant.

The coalition believes it would be less expensive in the long run to build a plant now that could offer more water rather than wait years down the road to augment the facility.

“The CPB believes it is now time for the Peninsula to solve its water supply dilemma rather than undersize a ‘solution’ and spend another 40 years arguing over the increment of water supply augmentation,” the group said.