SALINAS >> While the dust-up between water districts in Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties over access to water in Nacimiento Reservoir won’t qualify as a water war, it’s fair to call it a skirmish.

At issue is a pair of applications filed with the state Water Resources Control Board, or simply Water Board, by a water district from Monterey County’s southern neighbor — the Shandon-San Juan Water District and its Groundwater Sustainability Agency. That water district is asking the state to approve applications to take additional water from Nacimiento Reservoir.

In a written report to the Monterey County Board of Supervisors on Oct. 8, Ara Azhderian, general manager of the Monterey County Water Resources Agency, or WRA, explained that the Shandon water district is asking the state for permission to appropriate 14,000 acre-feet at Santa Margarita Lake on the Salinas River southwest of Atascadero in San Luis Obispo County, and from Nacimiento Reservoir, also in San Luis Obispo County, or SLO.

One acre-foot equals roughly 326,000 gallons, so Shandon is asking the state to allow it to take an additional 3.66 billion gallons. The Shandon water district wants the additional water for an underground storage project.

While Azhderian signed off on the report, it was Kelly Donlon, the assistant Monterey County county counsel, who presented the report to supervisors. What Donlon and Azhderian wanted from the board was an OK to send letters to both the Water Board and Shandon that indicates “the WRA will vigorously oppose any attempt by Shanon to condemn or otherwise obtain access to Nacimiento,” Donlon said.

She didn’t elaborate for the board what “vigorously oppose” specifically refers to. Shandon in its filings with the state is arguing that it has the authorization to condemn property “even if it is already dedicated to a public use,” according to the staff report. Condemn in this context refers to the legal acquisition of property by governmental bodies.

A voicemail left for Azhderian on Monday was not immediately returned. An email sent to the water agency Tuesday requesting comment from Azhderian or the WRA counsel was also not returned by Wednesday.

In an Oct. 8 letter to the Water Board from Glenn Church, the chairman of the Board of Supervisors, writing for the entire board, said the position of the county is clear in that a “quarter-million people downstream from the confluence of the Salinas River depend on the county maintaining its current water rights.”

Letters and other documentation use “confluence” to describe where the waterway coming out of Nacimiento Dam meets the Salinas River just south of the community of Bradley in Monterey County. The waterway coming out of San Antonio Reservoir meets the Salinas River right at Bradley.

“Importantly, (Monterey County) WRA owns and operates Nacimiento Reservoir and does not consent to Shandon’s proposed use of Nacimiento Reservoir,” the letter reads. “Lastly, portions of the Salinas Valley Groundwater Basin are in critical overdraft and increased diversions on the Nacimiento and the Salinas River will impact senior water right holders and riparian users.”

Senior water rights holders in California are people who claimed water before 1914, when the state took legal control.

He also notes in the letter that communities downstream of the confluence “have paid for (Nacimiento’s) construction, maintenance, and operation for over 65 years, (which) makes the applications by Shandon more than a mere distraction, but a potentially significant waste of public resources.”

While the newest skirmish is the most significant to date, the issue is not new. Shandon filed the initial petitions in May 2021, prompting a letter signed by then-board-chair Wendy Root Askew to the Water Board voicing Monterey County’s opposition to Shandon’s applications.

An email request for comment sent to Willy Cunha, president of the Shandon water district, was not immediately returned.

To better understand the skirmish today, a person needs to look back to the middle of the 20th century when the reservoirs were first conceived. Monterey County constructed both Nacimiento and San Antonio reservoirs (San Antonio Reservoir is in Monterey County) to meet water demands of the Salinas Valley, and continues to operate both. In 1954 and 1955, respectively, water rights for the two reservoirs were filed with the state by Monterey County’s precursor to the Water Resources Agency.

Eleven years later, the state issued a license to Monterey County to store 350,000 acre-feet a year. In 1996 a new permit was issued to the county for an additional 27,900 acre-feet of storage based on new capacity surveys, bringing the total capacity to 377,900 acre-feet.

It wasn’t like Monterey County was receiving all the water. SLO received water rights in 1959 for 17,500 acre-feet from Nacimiento via the Nacimiento Water Project.

Everything was moving along just ducky until 2014 when California passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act to thwart severe overdrafting of aquifers in the state by limiting pumping, primarily by agriculture interests. The act created Groundwater Sustainability Agencies to bring water pumping to a sustainable level in 20 years — 2040 for critically overdrafted basins, and by 2042 for all other high- and medium-priority basins.

Suddenly, everyone was hunting for new sources of water.

“While we appreciate the challenges the sustainable Groundwater Management Act has presented to many regions throughout the state, including in Monterey County,” the staff report reads, “it is inappropriate for Shandon to place new burdens on others that have in no way contributed to the problems it now faces.”