Government at fault

“Government at fault,” Carmel Pine Cone – July 15, 2022

With reference to the Pine Cone’s July 8 front-page article, Cal Am cites a significant price increase being forced on them to purchase 3,500 acre-feet of water from Pure Water Monterey each year.

With today’s runaway inflation, it is disturbing to see Monterey One and the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District lauding the first full year of supply under their contract with Cal Am.

If my calculations are correct, this will cost Cal Am customers an additional $3.423 million annually for the 3,500 acre-feet (1.14 billion gallons), based on the 3-cent-per-gallon cost increase, compared to Cal Am’s own costs.

The opponents of the recent effort for the Cal Am takeover by these government agencies were concerned with the track record of government agencies in running businesses. In this case they are just a supplier of water to a business (Cal Am), but this action supports this concern and is just the beginning of the government’s negative influence with our drinking water after just one year.

Of course people will complain that their water bills will be going up and say nasty things about Cal Am, but the responsible party here is the government.

Jim Ferguson, Carmel