Water-The Third Rail, Part IV

Brent was taking Roger Hedgecock’ place today on radio station KFMB 760
while Roger is away. Brent was discussing Slate Magazine’s article “Thirsty
West: Why Californians Will Soon Be Drinking Their Own Pee”. It’s a much
better option than desalination, they said simply because after spending a
billion dollars for the desal plant in Carlsbad, it will only supply about
seven percent of the region’s water.

They are absolutely correct, but the bad news is that callers into the show
are really (to be kind), totally misinformed. One caller commented on
pharmaceuticals and other materials that get poured down the drain. Another
is feeling very meritorious for making his family take four minute showers.
A caller said they had not taken a shower for three weeks. They use Costco
size bottles of hand sanitizer, covering their bodies with the stuff! I
heard it, he really did say that.

I called in. Brent took my call. My message to his listening audience is the
water we get is the product of several hundred wastewater plants upstream
from us. Slate points out Las Vegas is upstream from us and dumps their
wastewater into the Colorado River, which supplies sixty-three percent of
San Diego’s water. Before it’s distributed our water, to make it drinkable
(potable), has to be treated. That’s done at three different plants around
the County.

We cannot conserve our way out of this. It has taken a hundred years to get
where we are…totally reliant on water coming from hundreds of miles away
subject to natural disasters and capricious courts. As Slate say, we cannot
rely on desalination. It is too expensive. For a billion dollars, the cost
of the Carlsbad plant, we could recycle double that plant’s capacity.

And as I pointed out in the last blog, we are sending over two hundred
million gallons of oxygen seeking partially treated sewage to the ocean
EVERY Day and with that twenty-one TONs of grease EVERY Day. [page 118 of the permit]. If this was an
oil spill by Exxon the headlines would scream, “Nearly 200 barrels of oil
are spilling into the waters off Pt. Loma every day”. It is a “win-win” to
recycle our wastewater. We get the water and the ocean doesn’t have to do
the cleanup job for us.

Next time San Diegans go to the River (Colorado), keep in mind you are
swimming and boating in water that is made up of partially treated Las Vegas
sewage and hundreds of other city’s wastewater coming from upstream. And by
the way, the same is true of water we get from the State Water Project.same
partially treated sewage water that has been through millions of alimentary
canals.

Remember the tag line from “Water-The Third Rail, Part Two”..”We don’t need
no stinking waiver!” We need to recycle our wastewater using IPR/DPR

Milton N. Burgess, P. E., FASPE
619-528-0316
Cell 619-985-7727

Author of “Water Shock, The Day Southern California Went Dry”
www.water-shock.com