Why one of the cities most dependent on the Colorado River now has water for saleSAN DIEGO, Calif - Even as California is offering to take less ...
Published by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network
Why one of the cities most dependent on the Colorado River now has water for sale
SAN DIEGO, Calif - Even as California is offering to take less water from the drought-shrunken Colorado River, one of the state's biggest cities that's long been the most dependent on it curiously now has excess water to sell.
On a good year, San Diego gets barely eight inches of rain. And not too long ago, the picturesque coastal city was staring down major water supply shortages - it's notoriously at the end of the line of the Colorado River "straw," a good three hour drive from the shrinking river itself. But today, thanks in part to aggressive water recycling and urban and agricultural conservation programs and a big bet made on salt water, San Diego has a surplus and other thirsty nearby cities and states are eager to tap it.
"I don't think we can save the Colorado River, but what we're looking to do is show that there is an opportunity to manage the system in a new way," says Meena Westford, director of imported water at the San Diego County Water Authority.
San Diego Salt Water is for sale?
At Carlsbad State Beach north of the city, roughly 100 million gallons of seawater gets pumped through gravel and sand and treated via reverse osmosis at the Claude "Bud" Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant. About fifty million gallons a day turns into potable water. Since it came online at the site of a former coal fired power plant in late 2015, the facility produces about 7-10% of the region's water.
Right now anyway, despite the western megadrought, they don't need it locally.
"We're the only agency that is bringing new water into the system. This is not horse trading Colorado River water. This is really introducing and augmenting the system with new water," Westford says.
Meena Westfield of the San Diego County Water Authority says the city has made great strides cutting water use since the 1990s, even as the region’s population grew
Meena Westfield of the San Diego County Water Authority says the city has made great strides cutting water use since the 1990s, even as the region's population grew
Kirk Siegler/NPR
No one is talking about building a pipeline from here to Arizona or trucking the extra desalinated water to Las Vegas. Westford says to think of it more like a transfer on paper. If approved by the Department of the Interior, the authority would exchange its existing Colorado River supplies stored in Lake Mead for desalinated water.
"So we'd be drinking more desal water here in San Diego and leaving our Colorado River supplies for other folks to use," Westford says.
Environmentalists say desalination is a boondoggle
Environment
A wastewater recycling program could be a model for regions where water is scarce
But desalinated water is energy intensive and extremely expensive to make. Water from the San Diego plant is estimated to cost upwards of five to ten times more than river water. And environmentalists like Patrick McDonough warn building more desal plants up and down the California coast isn't the panacea for the Colorado River crisis.
"The water produced by this massive, biggest in the western hemisphere desalination plant is a drop in the swimming pool compared to the entire Colorado River basin supplies issue," says McDonough, a senior attorney with San Diego Coastkeeper.
SAN DIEGO, Calif - Even as California is offering to take less water from the drought-shrunken Colorado River, one of the state's biggest cities that's long been the most dependent on it curiously now has excess water to sell.
On a good year, San Diego gets barely eight inches of rain. And not too long ago, the picturesque coastal city was staring down major water supply shortages - it's notoriously at the end of the line of the Colorado River "straw," a good three hour drive from the shrinking river itself. But today, thanks in part to aggressive water recycling and urban and agricultural conservation programs and a big bet made on salt water, San Diego has a surplus and other thirsty nearby cities and states are eager to tap it.
"I don't think we can save the Colorado River, but what we're looking to do is show that there is an opportunity to manage the system in a new way," says Meena Westford, director of imported water at the San Diego County Water Authority.
San Diego Salt Water is for sale?
At Carlsbad State Beach north of the city, roughly 100 million gallons of seawater gets pumped through gravel and sand and treated via reverse osmosis at the Claude "Bud" Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant. About fifty million gallons a day turns into potable water. Since it came online at the site of a former coal fired power plant in late 2015, the facility produces about 7-10% of the region's water.
Right now anyway, despite the western megadrought, they don't need it locally.
"We're the only agency that is bringing new water into the system. This is not horse trading Colorado River water. This is really introducing and augmenting the system with new water," Westford says.
Meena Westfield of the San Diego County Water Authority says the city has made great strides cutting water use since the 1990s, even as the region’s population grew
Meena Westfield of the San Diego County Water Authority says the city has made great strides cutting water use since the 1990s, even as the region's population grew
Kirk Siegler/NPR
No one is talking about building a pipeline from here to Arizona or trucking the extra desalinated water to Las Vegas. Westford says to think of it more like a transfer on paper. If approved by the Department of the Interior, the authority would exchange its existing Colorado River supplies stored in Lake Mead for desalinated water.
"So we'd be drinking more desal water here in San Diego and leaving our Colorado River supplies for other folks to use," Westford says.
Environmentalists say desalination is a boondoggle
Environment
A wastewater recycling program could be a model for regions where water is scarce
But desalinated water is energy intensive and extremely expensive to make. Water from the San Diego plant is estimated to cost upwards of five to ten times more than river water. And environmentalists like Patrick McDonough warn building more desal plants up and down the California coast isn't the panacea for the Colorado River crisis.
"The water produced by this massive, biggest in the western hemisphere desalination plant is a drop in the swimming pool compared to the entire Colorado River basin supplies issue," says McDonough, a senior attorney with San Diego Coastkeeper.
Tags
- Water Supply
- Produced Water
- Desalination
- Water Supply
- Water Supply System
- Colorado, United States
- Water from Air