ITEM:		DISCUSSION ITEM
13.	DISCUSS AQUIFER STORAGE AND RECOVERY THIRD INJECTION WELL CONCEPT
Meeting Date:			January 22, 2024	Budgeted:
From:			Dave Stoldt	Program/
			General Manager	Line Item No.:
Prepared By:			Maureen Hamilton	Cost Estimate:
			Jonathan Lear
General Counsel Approval:  N/A
Committee Recommendation: N/A
CEQA Compliance:  This action does not constitute a project as defined by the California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines Section 15378.

SUMMARY:   The Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) project diverts water from the Carmel River when State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) permits’ criteria are met. The water is conveyed to the Seaside Groundwater Basin (SGB) for storage and produced by California-American water (Cal-Am) wells for customer use. The stored ASR water can be accumulated year-to-year for use in droughts. The ASR project is the least expensive potable-water project on the Monterey Peninsula.

The ASR project performance is constrained to approximately 13.3 acre-feet per day (AFD) while two of the four ASR wells are used by Cal-Am as full-time production wells. This constraint will continue until 2 new production wells are constructed by Cal-Am. When Pure Water Monterey (PWM) Expansion is constructed, a total of 4 new production wells will be required. The ASR project performance may be constrained to 13.3 AFD for years.

Under this proposal, a 5th ASR well (ASR-5) could be constructed at the Santa Margarita site, for a total of 3 ASR wells located at that site. The injection capacity of all 3 ASR wells could be approximately 20 AFD. The conveyance from the Carmel River to the ASR injection wells is presently constrained to approximately 17-18 AFD. Thus, the proposed ASR-5 well at the Santa Magarita site would restore ASR project performance, which has historically been constrained by the conveyance pipeline.

Preliminary budget estimates utilizing the winning PWM Expansion Injection Wellfield (IWF) bid are detailed in the table below. The IWF was bid twice due to material deviations in the first bid round. The second IWF bids were opened on September 7, 2023 and were lower than the first bids. The ASR-5 construction estimate has been adjusted for some known differences between the projects.

Item	Estimate	Details
Soft Costs	$1,000,000	BOD, Survey, Geotech, CEQA, Design, Permits, Outreach and Notices, UXO
Construction	$5,500,000	Well $2.4M, mechanical, electrical
PGE	$400,000	Placeholder for new PGE line drop
Total	$6,900,000

EXHIBIT

13-A ASR Well Location Map

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