High and Dry in San Diego

Published: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 7:49 PM PDT

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The hot topic these days -- in the news, at the debates, even at the water cooler (pun intended) -- is water supply. The Colorado River is literally drying up due to climate change and over-allocations. A recent legal decision to protect an endangered fish (the Delta smelt) in Northern California will result in less water coming from the Delta to Southern California, while climate change conditions have reduced the Sierra snowpack, the primary source of water for that river system. Our own region is in a near-historic drought that has reduced even the little local water the region usually relies on, and increasing population in the southwest is adding demand for water at the same time supplies are rapidly diminishing.

As a water quality focused organization, San Diego Coastkeeper has been drawn in to the debate over water supply because the way the water gets to our tap or sprinkler or ocean has a lot to do with how clean our rivers, bays, and beaches are. That's why we've developed own water supply hierarchy -- what sources to look to and in what order.

First is conservation, the cheapest and most environmentally friendly way to increase water supply. While this may seem like a truism, and strides have been made over the past 15 years, more must be done to make conservation a regional priority. Whether that looks like mandatory restrictions, a water rate structure that prioritizes conservation for all customer classes, or enforceable water supply assessments for new development, we must do more with what we have.

Next in line is water recycling and water reuse, both potable and non-potable. We've been intimately involved in the City of San Diego's Water Ruse Study and are helping the City implement a plan to maximize the beneficial use of recycled water at the lowest per-unit cost. More about the Water Reuse Study's new water reuse pilot project in a later post.

Last on the list is desalination, done in an environmentally responsible manner. Contrary to some media portrayals, Coastkeeper isn't anti-desalination or anti-progress. However, current open-ocean intake desalination is extremely energy-intensive, which means trading water security for energy insecurity. Exacerbating global warming will simply accelerate drought, so we've consistently advocated for a holistic process to evaluate desalination's place in our water portfolio.

-- GABE SOLMER

3 Comments so far on this story...

Was it a typo or a freudian slip? The "Water Ruse Study" is a howl, I almost fell out of my chair at the sight of the "American Assembly" earnestly rubber stamping the local pork project du jour, which is Reservoir Augmentation with treated wastewater. As if an agency that cannot and will not comply with the Clean Water Act can be trusted to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act. Indeed, one city's "novel and progressive" answer to the water supply crisis is many other cities' "unacceptable risk to public health"! The really big danger of this scheme are ENDOCRINE DISRUPTORS, the un-metabolized residue of the thousands of pharmaceuticals that sail through our bodies right into the waste stream. Many of these small biologically active molecules are not caught by the reverse osmosis filters that will be the heart of any such "purification". Cancer anyone?

Posted by Chris | reply to this comment
October 29, 2008 7:42 am

Just a damn funny typo in the hyper link to the Water Reuse Study. You left out the e, so it reads the Water Ruse Study, which has all kinds of implications that bring a smile to my face...

Posted by Shaun | reply to this comment
October 29, 2008 8:10 am

As a member of the "American Assembly" on water reuse, I can state categorically that it was not a rubber-stamp process. I read all of the materials and did my own research in addition (as 40-year+ professional researcher and librarian), and have absolutely no reservations about the complete safety of re-purified sewage for potable water. The water from your tap today contains the pharmaceuticals and endocrine disruptors that some fear in re-purified sewage. Yet it is documented that RO removes these impurities, unlike the water we've been drinking for most of our lives - where do you think the water that we now drink came from? The Colorado River where hundreds of communities discharge partially treated sewage, along with mining and agricultural chemicals & fertilizers, and from rivers in northern California that run through hundreds of miles of agricultural lands from which chemicals and fertilizers drain!

Posted by Judy S. | reply to this comment
October 30, 2008 9:43 am

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