The Monterey Bay region of California, like other Mediterranean climates around the world, suffers from seasonal and chronic water shortages. Many of these regions have turned to or are looking at desalination to augment or secure future water supplies. Desalination as a source of freshwater has frequently been critiqued for its high energy use and the need for brine disposal. This case looks at the hydrosocial imaginaries constructed around a proposed desalination project in Marina, California. The project’s would-be developer, investor-owned water utility Cal-Am, planned to use slant wells to extract saline groundwater and seawater for a project called the Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project. The project could decrease pressures on the already-overdrafted Salinas Valley groundwater basin and Carmel Rivers, to the benefit of anadromous Salmonids. But could also compromise the integrity of the groundwater that supplies drinking water for the City of Marina. In 2019, a coastal development permit for the project was denied by the California Coastal Commission (CCC), which justified the decision based on an analysis spurred by a new environmental justice policy, arguably the strongest such policy by an infrastructure permitting agency in the U.S. The commission argued that the underrepresented community– which has long been a fenceline community with sand mines, a regional wastewater treatment facility, and a landfill– would not receive the benefits. Instead that water would be sent to a better-off community on the Monterey Peninsula. Agency staff found there were more equitable alternatives to the water supply problem. In November 2022, the CCC reversed course and approved the project. We include this case specifically as a way to examine contested hydrosocial imaginaries of environmental justice and the sustainability of future water supply infrastructure projects.
Read more about the desalination case study:
Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project EIR/EIS, Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary (National Environmental Policy Act lead agency)
California Public Utilities Commission (California Environmental Quality Act lead agency)
California Coastal Commission's Environmental Justice Policy
Cal Am’s Desal Raises Critical Concerns for Marina’s Water Future