In the name of adequate water supplies, San Diego's City Council has overridden Mayor Jerry Sanders' veto of a pilot project to test the alchemy of turning sewage into tap water. The mayor, like us, has grave doubts about what is essentially “toilet to tap.”The source of the water isn't the mayor's only concern. How to cover the estimated $210 million cost of treating and storing highly treated wastewater is another, major issue.
The city's past financial finagling means not only a higher interest rate in the bond market. The market will also charge San Diego an extra “moral hazard fee.” Add that embarrassment to ratepayers' increasing anger at the stranglehold that profligate city pensions have been allowed to have on city budgets – including the Wastewater Department, whose revenue must cover its employees' pension costs. No wonder investment in water infrastructure lags so.
That said, the mayor shouldn't let his antipathy toward this project blind him or his staff to lessons of Orange County's just-opened sewage-recycling plant. That county tapped tens of millions from regional, state and federal grant funds and low-interest loans to build and operate that plant. Water rates increased, but hardly as much as bearing the full cost would have.
Fortunately, all grants aren't limited to sewage recycling. Some could cover San Diego's more urgent needs. For example, whatever the sources of our water – the Colorado River, the Sacramento Delta, the Pacific, recycling plants – distributing it through the city's disintegrating pipes and other aged infrastructure rather defeats the purpose.
Just improvements enough to prevent that leakage would on its own conserve current water supplies. Adding infrastructure to distribute more of the wastewater that two city plants already treat sufficiently for irrigation and industrial use would help in two ways: Save more potable water from sprinklers and add needed customers for this recycled water; the plants currently operate at only a quarter of their capacity.
At worst, grants for the council's pilot program would free up city funds for more immediate needs.
As Union-Tribune reporter Mike Lee noted last Sunday, $91 million of the $5.4 billion state bond for water-related projects, approved by voters in 2006, may be disbursed this summer for this region. The federal Bureau of Reclamation has granted the San Diego area $84 million in the past 12 years to help pay for water reuse and, and if Congress approves enough money, might chip in 25 percent of the construction costs for projects to augment reuse.
The Metropolitan Water District, which sells water to member districts in Southern California, also pays them based on how much water they recycle. Expanding its recycling efforts could more than double the payments San Diego now receives.
The council may get its pilot plant, and council members, of course, the first gulps of its product. Other ways to increase recycled water, with grants and loans to keep ratepayers' bills from soaring, seem plentiful, without ever taking a sip.
