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WANTED: Sound Rationale for Mayor Sanders' Opposition to Water RecyclingPublished: Monday, July 21, 2008 2:17 PM PDT San Diego Coastkeeper is willing to offer a REWARD (ok, a free one-year Shore Crab membership to anyone who can offer up a reason for Mayor Sanders' opposition to water recycling for potable uses that actually makes sense (yes, there had to be a catch). It's been more than a year since I met with Mayor Sanders and his staff on this issue, and I'm still scratching my head over why, exactly, he has so adamantly opposed a project that could create up to 16 million gallons a day of drought proof, municipally-owned drinking water for the City of San Diego. For a quick background, in October, the City Council voted 5-2 to implement a pilot project (Indirect Portable Re-use) to test using highly treated sewage water to augment the San Vicente Reservoir, as recommended in the City's 2005 Water Reuse Study. After the Mayor vetoed this project, the Council for the first time under the 'strong Mayor' form of government overrode his veto by a 5-3 vote in December. This should have resulted in the City moving ahead with a one million gallon-per-day pilot project that could be expanded to a full scale reservoir augmentation project should the City, California Department of Public Health and other agencies deem it safe. Unfortunately, it seems as though the Mayor has issued an unofficial 'wallet veto,' and this project appears stalled despite the approval and override by the City Council (wait, this isn't how things are supposed to happen under 'strong Mayor', is it?). So let's quickly examine the Mayor's stated concerns: Public Health -- Should we be using highly treated wastewater as a drinking water source? That is a good question, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. First, let's remember that what the Council approved is a small-scale pilot project that will help us determine whether a full-scale project is safe. Let's also not forget that the Colorado River, where we get nearly half our water currently, is hardly pristine. In fact, there are more than 400 million gallons of sewage discharges from over 225 separate sewage agencies in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada (remember, 'what happens in Vegas' actually ends up in San Diego's water supply), and another 1.5 billion gallons of industrial discharges into the Colorado before water gets to us. Finally, we should also recognize that indirect potable use (admittedly, more frequently groundwater injection rather than reservoir augmentation) has been done successfully in cities across the country and across the globe, in some instances for more than thirty years. Now, it has been suggested by some that the Mayor's posturing is simple politics -- he is against IPR either because City Attorney Mike Aguirre is for it (and we know how well they get along), or because of Sanders' relationship with Poseidon Resources, which could view IPR as competition. It is true there are well-documented close connections between the Mayor and Poseidon, ranging from political contributions to sharing a PR/political consultant, Tom Shepard. Coincidentally, Maloni left Tom Shepard's firm (where Poseidon was his client) in April to work as a Vice President for Poseidon. --BRUCE REZNIK
20 Comments so far on this story...
Bruce, I totally agree with your strategies on a water plan. Conservation must be up front with all citizens working toward conserving more water. The city tried to do a reuse/recycle project years ago, but it was canned until a couple of years ago when Council approved another study. My one question is: How do you get the citizens over the "yuck" factor? Good luck with that one. I was involved years ago and the citizens just didn't want it, even though they are already drinking it. Where do they think other cities along the Colorado River dump their treated sewage? It will be an uphill battle at best. Good luck. Did you know that while local water agencies charge residential customers tiered rates, whereby the higher your water useage, the more you pay, but still charge commercial, industrial, governmental and agricultural customers flat rates, allowing them to pay the same per unit of water used, no matter how much they use? Isn't it about time we took action against these discriminatory rates that benefit nonresidential customers at the expense of local residents? Call or write your local water agency and sound off! Why save water when our politicians are just going to give it to developers to support new housing subdivisions? Local water and land use planning agencies should require that all new growth be designed as water efficient as possible and fully offset the additional water demand created by their projects by funding the installation of water efficiency measures in existing buildings. Mr. Reznik, is your agency prepared to put it's money where it's mouth is? How about Coastkeeper step up and offer monetary incentives to HOAs and companies to retrofit and hook up to recycled water. The infrastructure is expensive. My community would surely welcome incentives to help our HOAs, schools, and parks hook up to recycled water. Surely you're paying a lot of money for your lawyers so you must not mind spending money. Instead of fighting, why not lead? You could lead a coalition of environmental groups that help us use more recyled water. Did you know that the North City Reclamation Plant only sells 8 of the 45 million gallons per day it treats? What a waste. I'll try to quickly respond to everyone's comments as they come in - Kathi - I agree with your comments. As discussed in my water reuse post, let me just say in all the hearings have gone to, I've never seen any real public outrage at water recycling....Politic keep saying they fear a backlash, but people seem generally indifferent and polls have suggested they very willing to (re)consider IPR once they are educated on the subject...a little leadership would go a long way. Watcher - Also agreed. Most water is wasted in residential landscaping, but there is no reason to have inequitable water rates. CPI (Center for Policy Initiatives) has done some good analysis on this. We are researching different water rate structures, but don't have a formal recommendation as of yet. Voter - Depressing but true. Yes, we ALL need to do our part, but it is hard when we don’t seem to be doing anything to curb water demands from new development. I fear this will be especially true if we create new water with desal (we won’t actually decrease transfers at all, just more incentives for growth). D5 Voter – As a nonprofit, we are not in position to offer incentives (nor do we spend a ton of money on attorneys). Bit I assure we are trying to lead, even working to help secure the $11M the Mayor claims he can’t find for the Pilot IPR project, and have offered up a way for the City to save the entire amount of the full IPR project ($200M-$280M) be eliminating some of their requirements under our consent decree to reduce spills (which has proven very effective, reducing spills by 83% since 2000). Unfortunately, the way the economics of water reuse work, it is very expensive to reuse water for existing residential uses (even getting water to our biggest customers, like Balboa Park or Mission Bay Park is not cost effective). That is why we support (and I don’t know why the Mayor opposes) using an IPR project so that all water from the North City Plant can be used (and the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on that project are not wasted). C'mon Bruce. It's an election year. Can you read the lead story: Mayor agrees to use toilet water for the citizens of San Diego. But seriously, why can't we get away from the Toilet to tap nomenclature? How about emphasizing the new-source-water savings? Everytime I drive by a golf course I cringe with disgust! Why are they using new drinking water to grow turf for the few who enjoy the 'game'? I feel the same way about stadiums, commerical spaces and parks. They should be using "Turf to Tap" water! Every ounce of recycled water should go to these arenas that are huge water users=saved drinking water! Period. If we can't recycle water at the City level(until after the election is over), then any new projec should be creating their own recycled water for landscaping. Why can't folks understand the necessity? Rainwater capture and groundwater injection needs to be done Coast Watcher – excellent points. I had hoped it was just an election issue, and Mayor Sanders would move more towards IPR after he prevailed in the primary. That hasn’t happened – his stance hasn’t softened at all. While maybe he just doesn’t want to undermine other candidates running (forcing them to take a stand), it seems to me if it was just election concerns, he should have moved after June. I also agree that we need to get recycled water to large users (like golf courses, etc.) eventually (and this can be done through gray water as well as recycling), but right now building purple pipe to deliver 1-2 MGD even for the largest existing users is not economical. It also runs into seasonal issues (demand for recycled water is very high in dry weather, low in wet weather), which is offset by using reservoir augmentation (reservoirs can take more water when it is available in wet weather, less when it is not in dry). I do think we need to use all recycling options, but let’s focus for now on the most bang-for-the-buck. As for the ‘toilet to tap’ language – I’m one of the few who uses it….while it is not accurate, I think we (enviros) look like we’re trying to ‘hide the ball’ if we just talk in terms of reservoir augmentation and IPR (more technically accurate terms), so I embrace (reluctantly) the TtT phrasing. Gerry Braun of the UT did a nice piece on this - link The most respected science council in this country concluded that toilet-to-tap as contemplated in San Diego may be safe but there is no scientific guarantee. Therefore, the National Research Council concluded that toilet-to-tap should be a choice of last resort. See the following summary: link The National Research Council also concluded that a toilet-to-tap program as designed for San Diego (as opposed to Orange County) would comprise a health experiment and so would require a long term epidemiological study of the people (basically those people who won’t be able to afford bottled water) who drink San Diego’s tap water. The National Research Council conclusions have not been updated and appear to remain as valid today as when published in 1998. Mayor Sanders and others focus on the health issues and on the availability of alternatives. Advocates of toilet-to-tap either fail to address the health issues or have decided that they aren't concerned by them. I think the mayor's rationale is that he doesn't want to spend the money--he is hobbled by the city's financial situation and doesn't want to take on a new project. This "toilet to tap" phrase helps find others who will oppose recycled water for drinking. I checked Concerned's link to a 1998 study. This study said recycled water should be indirectly used for the drinking supply--I think the San Diego pilot project is just that--recycled water added to reservoirs and groundwater. The truth is that we are already drinking other city's recycled water when we use Colorado River water for our potable supply. Can the coast keeper really not sleuth the answer? It's because Sanders seeks votes from the massess by using terms like toilet-to-tap to paint the opposition as potty mouths. It's part of the conservative anti-science method of recruiting votes. He is not anti-science, but he is anti-science if it proviides votes. Anti-science? The only people who are anti-science are those who refuse to acknowledge and confront the conclusions of the most respected scientific organization in the world today. The National Research Council concluded that toilet-to-tap was a choice of last resort, a health experiment. The anti-science crowd declines to acknowledge the National Research Council report because it does not support their position. That's anti-science. Mayor Sanders obviously has read and understood the National Research Council report. That's pro-science. So far as I can tell, the Mayor's office had no good argument besides the political one - voters didn't like the sound of 'Toilet to Tap', so Jerry was against it, at least while he was running against Plastic-Fantastic Francis. Now that his election is over, let's hope his political stones enlarge and Jerry comes out for Poop to Soup! Pee to Tea!! Asses to Glasses!!! Why is this even an issue? We need the water. Toilet to Tap? Absolutely! I couldn't care less if my drinking water comes from someone else's toilet bowl. I'll drink other people's recycled urine by the gallon. Fine with me. It doesn't matter if it was originally someone's dirty bathwater, the drainage discharged from their washing machine, or toilet water that was thoroughly mixed with their body waste before being flushed. Reclaim every last possible drop of water from that raw sewage, treat it to safe drinking standards, and pipe it straight to my kitchen faucet. Stop pumping it out to sea. I want to drink it. Why is this even an issue? We need the water. Toilet to Tap? Absolutely! I couldn't care less if my drinking water comes from someone else's toilet bowl. I'll drink other people's recycled urine by the gallon. Fine with me. It doesn't matter if it was originally someone's dirty bathwater, the drainage discharged from their washing machine, or toilet water that was thoroughly mixed with their body waste before being flushed. Reclaim every last possible drop of water from that raw sewage, treat it to safe drinking standards, and pipe it straight to my kitchen faucet. Stop pumping it out to sea. I want to drink it. Once again proponents of toilet-to-tap refuse to acknowledge the science as reflected in the report of the National Research Council. There is no scientific body in the world that is more respected. Ignoring the National Research Council constitutes ignoring the science. Mayor Sanders has embraced the science. Perhaps some proponents have answers to the report from the National Research Council, point by point from some other similarly respected groupd of scientists. If so, these answers have never been made public. Thank you Mayor Sanders for following the science. Bruce, you hit it on the nose. What you don't point out is that San Diego really has no choice. Water is becoming increasingly scarce and most all reasonable options have to be pursued. For us to turn our back on one of the more cost-effective options available --- one used by other regions with great success -- simply ostrich-like inanity. Toilet to Tap, etc. address the supply side. Tier rates (for residential and commercial) address the demand side. I am a fan of raising rates MUCH higher so that demand falls to equal supply (whether it comes from the Colorado, toilets or desal). link Reader feedback
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