In 1958, Granville Perkins moved from Yakima, Washington, to Castroville, California, with his family to become the West Coast field representative for Birds EyeÒ Foods. After one year in the area, he accepted the position of plant manager for Artichoke Industries, Inc., located in Castroville, later being promoted to general manager of its facilities and finally becoming a member of the company’s board of directors.

It wasn’t long after he began his new job that Granville learned about seawater intrusion. “Artichoke growers in the region were losing their wells to it and no one was doing anything about it,” he recalls. With the knowledge he acquired while attaining a bachelor’s degree in food science, he believed that recycled wastewater was the only viable solution to providing irrigation water to the artichoke growers, because rainfall in the region was unpredictable and the Salinas River flow rarely reached the farmlands in northern Monterey County. To promote his idea, he acquainted himself with the local leaders—Monterey County Ag Commissioner Albert Culver, Monterey County Farm Bureau Advisors Norman McCalley and Bill Barker, and Director of Environmental Health for Monterey County Walter Wong. They shared his concern for the farmers’ dilemma. But, because it had never been done, they needed to be convinced about his innovative, yet potentially controversial idea. At the time, they weren’t aware that Israel had already begun irrigating food crops with tertiary water.

In 1972, many of the neighboring cities of the region joined together to develop a regional wastewater treatment plant. Granville was an advocate for the project and became one of the board of directors of the newly formed organization—Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency (MRWPCA). His primary purpose in serving on the board was to convince the other directors that if wastewater was treated to tertiary standard, it could be used safely to irrigate farmlands in northern Monterey County. When the board was faced with deciding whether wastewater should be treated at the proposed plant to secondary ocean-discharge standards or to the more costly tertiary treatment standards, Granville cast the deciding vote that swung the 6-5 victory in favor of tertiary treatment.

Because recycled water for agricultural purposes would need the approval from the US Environmental Protection Agency, the State Water Resources Control Board established a research station in the Castroville farmlands in proximity to the Castroville wastewater treatment plant. In 1980, the board contracted the University of California to conduct studies at the station to determine if tertiary water could be used to safely irrigate the edible food crops that were historically grown in the area. This was the beginning of the extensive 11-year Monterrey Wastewater Reclamation Study for Agriculture that resulted in conclusive evidence that tertiary treated wastewater was indeed safe for edible food crops irrigation.

Recognizing Granville’s knowledge and political influence in local water issues, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors appointed him as a director to the newly formed Monterey County Water Resources Agency (MCWRA), which was to develop and oversee water projects in the county. With the intention of taking his idea to the next step—adding tertiary treatment and a distribution system to the proposed wastewater treatment plant—he served on the board for four years with his first term as chairperson.

When the construction of the regional wastewater treatment plant was completed in 1977, Granville was chairman of the MRWPCA board on which he had served for 11 consecutive years. For the treatment plant’s groundbreaking ceremony, he honored those individuals instrumental in the success of the project by seating them onstage. Walter Wong, who had been an adversary to the use of tertiary water, though he participated in its development, sat amidst the audience and was not mentioned during the acknowledgements. After that event, Walter’s attitude toward the use of recycled water changed, and he became an active supporter of the Monterey County Water Recycling Projects (Projects), the joint effort between the MCWRA and MRWPCA that was to provide recycled water to northern Monterey County for agricultural irrigation.

While the Projects were being designed and funded, growers were at first reluctant to participate in the project, declining to purchase the recycled water to irrigate their crops. They feared that they might be sued for selling contaminated produce, or their buyers might not accept produce grown with recycled water. In response to their concerns, Granville helped form the Water Quality and Operations Committee in 1996. Chairing the Committee comprised of growers, property owners, and representatives from Monterey County Department of Health Services, MCWRA, and MRWPCA, his goal was to assure the growers that recycled water produced at the treatment plant would be safe and that continuous monitoring would ensure a high standard of water quality.

When construction of the Projects was completed in 1997, half of the growers in the Castroville area had committed to purchasing the recycled water. With the support of Ed Boutonnet, managing partner of Ocean Mist, and Dale Huss, general manager of Sea Mist, who actively promoted the new water supply, all of the growers were irrigating with recycled water within the next few years.
Much has changed since Granville came to Monterey County 53 years ago—the number of artichoke growers has dropped to only six from over 60 (though the same number of acres is being farmed), and the primary crop has diversified. Granville accomplished what he set out to do— keep his grower suppliers in business. Not only did his idea come to fruition, it has become internationally acclaimed and has been a model for many similar projects.

“MRWPCA has shown its ability to produce an exceptionally high standard of recycled water,” says Granville. “With the region’s increasing needs for potable water, it would only be wise for the surrounding communities to begin planning for its use to recharge our groundwater supply.”