Desalination is a process by which human beings essentially “manufacture” potable water. Desalination removes the salts from salty water, which is unfit for human use. The process produces what is essentially a new water supply. It’s easy to see the “good” points. If we manufacture our water supply, we don’t have to rely on natural systems and the hydrologic cycle. We put human beings in direct control of one of the resources we absolutely need to live. The City of Santa Cruz and the Soquel Creek Water District are proposing a “desal” plant to help avoid scarcity in times of drought, and to allow the pumps of Soquel Creek to do less pumping of a nearly-overdrafted aquifer.

The arguments on the other side are also good. Manufacturing water costs big bucks, both to construct the manufacturing facility, and then to operate it. The process uses mammoth amounts of energy, and contributes to global warming, and when ocean water is the source, the process kills marine life as the water is sucked in, and as concentrated brine is put back into the marine environment.

This Wednesday, February 22nd, the Student Environmental Center at UCSC is hosting a “Desal Debate,” at 5:30 p.m. in the Stevenson Fireside Lounge. Former Santa Cruz Mayor Mike Rotkin and I will face off on the issues. You are definitely invited!

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Blog: Two Worlds
• Santa Cruz Sentinel As We See It Column On Desalination
• SCWD2 Desalination Program Website
• Desal Alternatives Website
• Vote On Desal Initiative Website
• Vote On Desal Initiative Measure
• Community Water Coalition Website Page
• Land Use Blog – Desalination And Growth

I often talk about the “plenary” power of local governments to regulate and condition land use within their jurisdictions. “Plenary” means “full,” and the basic rule is that California’s cities and counties have full authority to decide how the land inside their boundaries will be used. In other words, the so-called “property rights” of individual landowners are subordinate to the plenary power of the local community to decide what happens on particular pieces of land. Individuals don’t actually have a “right” to use their land any way they want to. They have to get “permission,” i.e., they have to get a “permit,” when they want to make any significant change in the existing situation.

This basic principle leads to lots of specific regulations which differ as between different local government jurisdictions, and which change over time. In Santa Cruz County, for instance, you cannot really develop or divide commercially productive agricultural land. That’s not true in Monterey County, and it didn’t used to be true in Santa Cruz County, either. Things were different before the passage of Measure J in 1978.

Some local governments regulate land use to preserve the “historic” character of existing uses and structures. The City of Monterey does that, and the Monterey City Council is talking about this very topic at their meeting tonight. I’ve put a link in today’s transcript.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Blog: Two Worlds
• City of Monterey City Council Agenda, February 21, 2012
• Agenda Item #17 – National Historic Landmark District

Frequent listeners will remember that I often mention the fact that the City of Capitola is getting ready to amend its General Plan. Because the City’s General Plan is its “constitution for land use,” it is the most important of the City’s planning regulations. If you are a Capitola resident, you should probably be paying attention as your local land use constitution is being revised.

Today, let me talk about current land use policy and permit items that are up for discussion and decision in the City of Capitola. The Capitola City Council is meeting tomorrow, at the Capitola City Hall, starting at 7:00 p.m. I have put some links in the Land Use Report Blog, available through the KUSP website. I encourage you all to take a look.

There are three, relatively minor land use items on the Council agenda, but when I say, “minor,” I betray my perspective. I don’t, personally, live in Capitola, and I am not personally involved with the businesses which will be coming before the Council to get their permits for the items I have called “minor.” In fact, getting a land use permit is almost always a “big deal” to those who have to get the permit, and to those most directly affected by what others might think of as a “minor” concern. Proposed changes in the location of recycling facilities at the Nob Hill Shopping Center is one of the items up for decision tomorrow night. That might not be “minor” to you.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Blog: Two Worlds
• City of Capitola Website
• Capitola City Council Agendas
• Capitola General Plan Update Website

I probably don’t talk nearly enough about water issues in Monterey County. This isn’t because I don’t care, and it’s not because I think that these issues aren’t central to the future growth and development of Monterey County. It would be hard to overstate the importance of water policy issues in Monterey County. The Monterey Peninsula has already arrived where the City of Santa Cruz is heading: to a position in which an official state agency has ordered the actual cutback of water diversions from one of the major water sources serving current residents and businesses. And as for groundwater overdraft, threatening the future of agriculture and residential developments alike, Monterey County is right up there with Santa Cruz County, and in a world of hurt.

Here’s the problem I find when I think about water policy issues affecting Monterey County: there is just too much going on relating to water, and it’s hard to find a way to boil it down for a ninety second presentation on one of these Land Use Reports.

Here is an item, however, that may grab your attention. A new water project idea is being formulated by the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, the Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency, and Cal-Am. The idea is to build a groundwater replenishment project, more or less like something that has been done in Orange County. There are links to more information in today’s transcript.

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Blog: Two Worlds
• Monterey Peninsula Water Management District Agenda, February 23, 2012
• Early Planning Memo On Groundwater Replenishment Project

Senate Bill 730 (authored by a Democrat) is one of the “settlement claims” bills passed on a pretty routine basis each year. In a recent Sacramento Bee op-ed, Senators Anderson and LaMalfa (both Republicans) complain about this bill. They concede that these settlement bills are mostly just fine, providing appropriate compensation to individuals or businesses that have been wronged by the state. In recent years, though, they say, “the liberal Democratic majority has slipped very questionable settlement claims into these bills.”

Their specific objection seems to be a proposed $6 million payment to the Environmental Protection Information Center (or EPIC) to reimburse EPIC for its attorneys’ fees. The way they see it, EPIC is “trying to get attorney fees from the taxpayers for … putting Californians out of work.” They claim that the taxpayers shouldn't be “footing the bill for lawsuits against the state.”

The Senators’ quarrel is actually with something called the “private attorney general doctrine.” If a governmental agency is supposed to be protecting our natural resources, and doesn’t do that, and if private attorneys have to go to court to make the government protect our resources, and if the attorneys win in court, then the government has to pay for the attorneys’ fees. That seems fair to me, and it is the law. It’s not about Democrats and Republicans!

More Information:

• Gary Patton’s Blog: Two Worlds
• Assembly Analysis of SB 730
• Sacramento Bee Op-Ed On SB 730
• Senate Bill 730 By State Senator Christine Kehoe
• Private Attorney General Doctrine – CCP 1021.5
• EPIC Website