San Diego City Council Nov. 18 unanimously endorsed a water recycling program, backed by a broad coalition of environmental and business groups, that seeks to provide one-third of San Diego’s potable water by 2035, reducing reliance on costly imported water.
Mayor Kevin Faulconer urged the council to support renewed water reuse efforts aimed at “gaining water independence and the ability to control our own water supply for the very first time.”
The mayor described cultivating alternative local water supplies as “vitally important to our economy and maintaining our quality of life.”
Lauding the city’s Pure Water Project as “an investment in our future,” Faulconer thanked environmental, business and community leaders for coming together to “create environmentally friendly and cost-effective solutions to our water challenges.
First District Council member Sherri Lightner, representing La Jolla, urged the city to “provide incentives encouraging homeowners and businesses to use grey water and private (water) reclamation projects for commercial developments. We want to ensure a sustainable water supply for our region.” The Pure Water San Diego program is designed to purify enough wastewater to provide one-third of San Diego’s water supply after all three phases are fully operational in 2035.
The 20-year capital improvement project calls for the construction of a nearly $2 billion water-purification plant on Harbor Drive and the installation of advanced purification at the North City and South Bay water reclamation plants. The three facilities would eventually produce 83 million gallons per day.
The project would divert wastewater flows away from the Point Loma wastewater treatment plant, which treats wastewater before it’s piped into the ocean. That would allow for a higher level of treatment for wastewater and would negate the need for billions of dollars to outfit the Point Loma plant with a secondary water treatment system.
The City currently imports 85 percent of its water from Northern California and the Colorado River. A recent water reuse study project determined that it is feasible for San Diego to use water purification technology to produce one-third of San Diego’s drinking water supply locally by 2035.
The City Council vote ratified a cooperative agreement with environmental groups laying out steps to achieve both the significant reduction in discharges of treated sewage to the ocean and production of at least 83 million gallons per day of drinking water by 2035, enough to meet about 40 percent of the City’s current use.
“This vote represents a critical step towards solving San Diego County’s water supply issues and forms the basis of a new paradigm for water treatment and reuse in arid regions throughout the U.S. and Southern California,” said Marco Gonzalez, executive director of the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation. “Our agreement is the product of many years and countless hours conceptualizing a plan for better coastal protection while also creating a drought-proof local drinking water supply.”
Since the late 1990s, environmental groups have championed large-scale potable wastewater recycling as a win-win approach to solving the problem of continued substandard ocean discharges of treated wastewater and the need for a drought-proof source of locally controlled water for the San Diego region.
Incoming San Diego District 2 Council member Lorie Zapf noted the local search for water independence “has been a long and arduous process.” Pointing out the rare coalition of business and environmental groups on the issue, Zapf said, “This is a good thing.” But she warned that “There’s a lot of heavy lifting to come” in terms of future votes, needed legislation and environmental review.
Faulconer and city officials have been working together over the past 16 months with a diverse group of stakeholders, partners and local environmental groups to reach consensus on a strategy to submit the modified permit renewal application for the Point Loma plant, implement Pure Water San Diego and work to obtain approval of secondary equivalency for the Point Loma plant.