Either the neighbors filled their pool or Cal Am is up to it’s old tricks.
George Gergawy said he’s heard about the large bills for other Cal-Am customers and always thought it wasn’t real, until he opened his mailbox and saw the bill for $6,067.33. And, the home was empty last month after moving out.
According to Gergawy, the past 5 years the water bills at 747 Lyndon Street have been steady, between $15 and $16 dollars.
This Month’s Outrageous Cal Am Bill – $6,000 For A Vacant House
He admits having his name on it is a negative. So now it’s going to be run by a company that uses a mission statement “focus on private equity investments in innovative companies with disruptive technologies within the health care, natural and renewable resources and green technology markets.”
Hey, they left out “Substainable”.
“I’m removing myself from the operation because I have decided that if I stay out of it, that will help the project to move forward,” Agha says.
Only in government are projects costing from $2,000,000.00 to $17,000,000.00 considered “small projects”. They include reactivating the former waste treatment facility at Point Pinos, Runaway Mayor Dan Cort’s scheme to fill the old Cal Am reservoir or my favorite, pump raw sewage from DMP to Carmel – flush twice, it has to make it over the hill..
The city has tucked three small projects that would produce recycled wastewater or stormwater for irrigation into California American Water’s overall application to the state Public Utilities Commission for a Peninsula water project.
Looking at spiraling costs for the 100 to 125 acre-feet of water it takes a year to keep the city golf links and adjacent El Carmelo Cemetery green, the city looked at ways to replace that expensive potable water with nonpotable irrigation water.
Looks like normal Nadir business. Agha says it will cost $129,000,000 and a consultant says it will cost $190,000,000. Lew says he owns it, Nadir says he doesn’t. Lew says he has an agreement with Cal Am, Cal Am says they don’t.
Jaws dropped at the Pacific Grove City Council meeting this week when a man introduced himself and said he was taking over Nader Agha’s “People’s Desal” project.
At Wednesday night’s meeting, Donald Lew, managing partner for the Concord-based JDL Development private equity firm, made the surprising announcement Agha is no longer involved in the desal project, and that the project has been renamed.
Do check out the article in the Pine Cone. Lovely quotes like this:
According to JDL’s website, the family-owned private equity firm has a “focus on private equity investments in innovative companies with disruptive technologies within the health care, natural and renewable resources and green technology markets.”
Save us from water shortages as he turns cheek and runs away from the desalination supporters. What about a new dam on the Carmel river? Voters supported that way before any other money wasting projects.
Option 1, pipeline:
For $25 million, we could build a pipeline from the Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency plant back to the communities on the Peninsula, where this water originates. MRWPCA treats all the sewage that comes from the cities of Pacific Grove and Monterey. Once the water is treated, it is used to irrigate about 12,000 acres of Salinas farmland, then approximately 10,000 acre-feet is emptied into Monterey Bay.
A pipeline can deliver that wasted water back to the golf courses, parks and public areas of the Peninsula.
Option 2, gray water:
Our communities have the option to mandate that all residents make use of gray water. Our county Health Department and most of our Peninsula cities support the use of gray water, which uses recycled water from showers and sinks to flush toilets and irrigate our gardens. A residential retrofit costs less than $2,000 per household and can save upward of 30 percent of water use in a normal home.
Option 3, David Avenue Reservoir:
A huge untapped asset is the David Avenue Reservoir. This phenomenal resource, built in 1897 by Chinese immigrants, served Pacific Grove and New Monterey for decades.
Whatever it takes, I’m not for pumping sewage to the old reservoir on David Avenue.
Sarah Hardgrave, P.G.’s environmental programs manager, says other options include tapping MRWPCA wastewater and routing rainwater from the Forest Lake Reservoir – but extending existing pipelines could be cost-prohibitive. Another possibility: turning a Cal Am corporate yard on David Avenue into a reservoir.?
About 100-150 acre-feet could supply both the links and the cemetery, she adds: “We would want to maximize all the irrigated city properties that we could.”?
Same old blah blah blah. More taxes, change the tree policy, high cost desalinization, more development.
As the date comes near, I’ll be asking some tougher questions such as where they stand on the chicken control issue.
Four candidates for three four-year terms on the Pacific Grove City Council showed few areas of disagreement at a forum Tuesday at Chautauqua Hall that drew an audience of 50.
Incumbent Councilmen Ken Cuneo and Alan Cohen, and challengers Rudolph Fischer and Richard Ahart Jr., who will face off in the Nov.2 municipal election, answered written questions submitted by the audience on a number of city issues.
When you find yourself paying $150 a month for water, remember who to thank.
Saying the Peninsula has waited long enough for a solution to its water supply, the Pacific Grove City Council voted Wednesday to endorse the Regional Water Project, which calls for a desalination plant run by a public agency to be a source for California American Water.
The vote was 5-2, with Councilwomen Lisa Bennett and Deborah Lindsay dissenting.
I say leave residential bills as is and TRIPLE the cost for hotels. Make the biggest wasters of water bear the cost.
With or without a proposed regional seawater desalination facility, rates for California American Water customers on the Peninsula will likely double in the next few years, a company executive said Tuesday.
Cal Am President Rob MacLean admitted it would cost more to provide water if a regional water project is built. But he said the cost would be even greater if a replacement source to the Carmel River is not developed, and the regional desalination facility is the most inexpensive alternative.
“The rates will go up,” MacLean said after a Tuesday news conference in Monterey.
This was one of the “Runaway Mayor” Dan Cort’s sustainable schemes. Bad idea – especially for the residents that live north of the thing in case of an earthquake.
One reason I do not trust the city with more of my tax money.
A $45,000 study on the feasibility of reactivating California American Water’s empty reservoir in Pacific Grove as a catch basin for storm water runoff and a source of irrigation water for the city’s golf course and parks will be presented Wednesday to the Pacific Grove City Council.