Monterey Peninsula Water District outlines allocations; Carmel residents urge immediate release of credits

Monterey Peninsula Water District General Manager Dave Stolt told the Carmel-by-the-Sea City Council on July 1 that the recent Pure Water Monterey expansion will add “just over 2,000 acre-feet” to the peninsula’s supplies but that local jurisdictions still face allocation limits and a state cease-and-desist order that prevents new meter sets.

Stolt said allocations function like “a credit in your bank account” — they reserve water for a city but do not immediately provide meters. He described the district’s approach of holding a safety buffer of roughly 1,000 acre-feet and noted the district currently shows about 1,559 acre-feet available for allocation after that holdback. Stolt also told the council the district used a five-year average demand (about 9,500 acre-feet regionally) to set initial allocations and applied AMBAG growth forecasts to project future city needs.

The briefing…