San Diego’s Self-Inflicted Water Disaster

Buried deep in the San Diego City Council’s deplorable water history is
Resolution R-291210, passed in 1999 that directed the City Manager not to
spend any monies on water repurification. The Council apparently took this
action for purely political reasons, without regard for the health and
safety of the citizens of San Diego, meanwhile wasting a billion dollars of
our tax money in a failed attempt to water the San Diego’s lawns.

It may be constructive to provide a timeline of events before and after
that ludicrous resolution. To do this I am drawing on the work of Marco
Gonzalez, Coast Law Group LLP, Attorneys for Surfrider, San Diego Chapter
and San Diego Coastkeeper in a document referred to as: Cooperative
Agreement with City of San Diego for Non-Opposition to CWA 301(h) Waiver.

1980’s – San Diego missed the opportunity to apply for a waiver for the
non-conforming effluent from the Point Loma Wastewater Plant. It finally got
the waiver when it promised to reclaim 30 million gallons per day (mgd) for
irrigation purposes, of the 175 mgd coming into the Point Loma Wastewater
Plant.

1997–The North City Water Reclamation Plant opened to provide irrigation
water, not potable (drinking) water. It has been a miserable failure after
spending 500 million dollars to build the plant and provide a distribution
network of “purple pipe”.

1999– Resolution R-291210 was passed by the City Council declaring indirect
Potable Recycling indefinitely suspended.

2002–The South Bay Water Reclamation Plant was opened, and that too has been
a failure with little or no demand for its product, irrigation water. In a
2003 article not a single gallon of wastewater had been reclaimed. Current
reclamation is unknown.

2011–The San Diego Water Purification Project opened, treating one million
gallons per day to drinking water quality. But that water is not used in the
City’s water system. It is essentially wasted.

2014– In response to the Grand Jury’s scathing report, the City Council
approved spending one million dollars to engage a consultant to provide a
public relations campaign to convince water users recycling was okay despite
polls that show seventy percent of the water consuming public already
believe it is necessary for the health and safety of San Diego’s
socio-economic future.

Quoting the 2003 memo agreement by Mr. Gonzalez:
“ As the North City WRP came online in the mid-1990’s, the City also began
pursuing a “Water Repurification Project,” which would have achieved
indirect potable reuse of North City’s full capacity through reservoir
augmentation at the San Vicente reservoir. A pilot plant was constructed,
permitting undertaken, and public relations work conducted. The State of
California even deemed the project acceptable.

In the late 1990’s, as the City was approaching the time to move forward
with an actual project, politics and the specter of technological
uncertainty got in the way. Some members of the public and grandstanding
politicians put forward the notion that the sewage being treated at North
City was being primarily generated in the more wealthy and less ethnically
diverse northern reaches of the City (Del Mar, Carmel Valley, La Jolla), and
that the project would result in such treated sewage being pumped from the
North City plant to the San Vicente reservoir, from which it would be
treated and piped only to communities south of Interstate 8. Because these
communities were more 6economically depressed and ethnically diverse, the
entire matter became an environmental justice debacle. In addition, a
science advisory panel expressed caution as evidence evolved regarding the
presence of endocrine disrupters and other emerging contaminants of concern
in wastewater, and uncertainty existed regarding the ability of reverse
osmosis membranes (as then designed and constructed) to adequately remove
these new pollutants.

Despite the San Diego Grand Jury’s findings (attached as Exhibit 2) [This
was an earlier Grand Jury, not the one that filed its report on May 10,
2014] that these claims were merely hypothetical and never before witnessed
where indirect potable reuse was practiced for more than twenty years
(Orange County and Alexandria, Virginia), the project was killed..Despite
spending millions of dollars and achieving significant regulatory and public
support, the City Council declared IPR indefinitely excluded from San
Diego’s future. Though unhappy with the waste of money and time, City staff
was forced to accept this decision. Before long, to even discuss “toilet to
tap “was taboo. Some staff members working on the project were let go or
reassigned, and all reclamation efforts shifted exclusively to purple pipe
distribution of tertiary treated water. Because of this resolution, the City
staff representatives in our waiver negotiations did not agree IPR could be
part of our settlement.”

So here we are in 2014, in the middle of the most serious drought ever in
California. Had the San Diego City Council acted responsibly over thirty
years ago and in the ensuing years, this drought would be nothing more than
a speed bump for the citizens. Nearly a billion dollars has been spent, and
we still import 80% of our water. Is that a disaster or what?

Milt Burgess