The myth of better, faster, cheaper water.
For the past several years readers of the Monterey Herald have been subjected to a barrage of guest commentaries relating to our local water crisis. Some have come from the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District , affectionately known as “the water board” while others have been written by representatives from Cal-Am , the water company. These have typically been fluff pieces, saying little more than “we're making progress” except they use 600 words instead of three. But the vast majority of these commentaries have originated with a small cluster of citizens groups telling us the water board and/or Cal-Am are doing everything wrong. The desalination plant Cal-Am is planning to build is a rip-off, they say, frequently adding the opinion that only a public water company will ever give us a good deal. They trot out a mind-numbing array of facts and figures, which most of us average citizens struggle to decipher, to show that a better, faster, cheaper project can be ha