Water shortage triggers search for new sources

DAVE DOWNEY - ddowney@californian.com
February 28, 2010 7:15 pm

Residents of Riverside and San Diego counties have embraced the call to conserve in the wake of drought and Northern California pumping restrictions, but many are tired of cutting back and wondering if the water supply will become more secure.

Barbara Hortman, who sells real estate and lives on 2 acres in rural North San Diego County, is one of them.

"I live up in Valley Center, where groves from which people make a living have been cut down," Hortman said. "I have dead grass and dead landscaping because my husband and I have cut back. Things are dying all around us. Why can't our politicians do something?"

Local water officials say they are doing something.

Officials with agencies that distribute most water in Riverside and San Diego counties say they are developing other sources, with the goal of making the area less dependent on Sierra Nevada snowmelt that flows through the environmentally sensitive Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Water managers say they are building dams, recycling waste water, cleaning dirty groundwater and removing salt from seawater.

For example, Eastern Municipal Water District in Riverside County has two plants that take salt out of groundwater and make it drinkable and is gearing up to build another one, said district spokesman Peter Odencrans.

"We want to expand that," Odencrans said recently. "We still have a lot of salty water we want to clean up. And if we can clean it up, we can serve it."

At the same time, a desalination plant is under construction in Carlsbad and due to open in 2012, said Ken Weinberg, director of water resources for the San Diego County Water Authority.

"Those are the types of things that will make us less susceptible to what happens in the delta 500 miles away," Weinberg said.

However, in the view of some, the region's water leaders aren't moving fast enough.

"I don't think they're doing enough," said San Diego County Supervisor Bill Horn. "With this ocean sitting right here, they've got one desal plant on the boards. I think there ought to be five plants in the county of San Diego. We should be selling water to Arizona and everybody else."

The death knell

Southern California has been in a water crisis for three years.

The problem started with a drought in the Sierra Nevada and Colorado River basin, which combine to provide about two-thirds of the water used in Riverside and San Diego counties. And it was compounded by an August 2007 federal court order restricting delta pumping.

On Feb. 10, a U.S. district judge in Fresno upheld those limits, which are designed to prevent tiny delta smelt fish ---- considered the bellwether of the delta ecosystem's health ---- from being chopped up in giant pumps that place water in a State Water Project canal.

Those restrictions are expected to continue to squeeze deliveries, even though the drought is easing.

"What has happened is they've turned off the pumps for a little 2-inch fish that has no value, honestly," Horn said. "This is going to be the death knell for us if they don't figure out a way to give us more water."

Growing anxiety over the restrictions prodded state lawmakers to get together last fall to craft a plan that could ship more water south.

Legislators put an $11.1 billion bond on the November ballot. The measure would fund a restoration of the bruised delta ecosystem and construction of a canal that would move water around the delta, avoiding harm to smelt, salmon and other fish.

Given the project's similarities to the Peripheral Canal voters rejected in 1982, though, and people's uneasiness about the economy, approval is far from guaranteed, said Erik Bruvold, president of the National University System Institute for Policy Research in San Diego.

"Voters are really cranky," Bruvold said. "That's going to be a very, I think, challenging environment for incumbents and bond measures."

Even if voters do pass the measure, a canal won't be built anytime soon.

"The reality is, no matter how quickly we get moving on a canal or other fixes in the delta, those solutions are going to be 15 to 20 years away," said John Rossi, general manager for Western Municipal Water District.

Pursuing rain, salt water

Western serves a 527-square-mile territory that extends from Temecula to Corona and Riverside.

Eastern Municipal Water District serves a 555-square-mile area lying to the east, predominantly in the Interstate 215 corridor between Murrieta and Moreno Valley.

To the south, the San Diego County Water Authority serves most of San Diego County.

All three are umbrella agencies that buy Northern California and Colorado River water and supply local districts and cities that sell directly to homes and businesses.

All three are trying to diversify their supplies in the wake of the drought and delta restrictions.

"The experience we're going through with the state water project is just reinforcing the conclusion that we came up with in the last drought: We have to develop more local supplies," Weinberg, of the San Diego authority, said.

The authority is banking on the Carlsbad desalination plant to fill almost 10 percent of the San Diego area's future needs. And it may build a second desalination plant, twice as large as the one in Carlsbad, along the shores of Camp Pendleton.

Two regional suppliers ---- the San Diego authority and Western ---- are aiming to catch more rain water before it runs into the ocean.

The authority last summer launched a project to raise 220-foot San Vicente Dam near Poway by 117 feet, so it can hold water dumped by El Nino storms. Western secured state approval last fall to store storm water behind flood-control-oriented Seven Oaks Dam on the Santa Ana River in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Meanwhile, all three agencies are expanding efforts to recycle waste water and use it to irrigate golf courses, parks and other large turf areas. And they are taking salts and solvents out of groundwater that otherwise would be unfit for drinking.

In another venture, Western is preparing to build a 28-mile pipeline to deliver surplus water stored underground.

And the San Diego authority cut a deal with Imperial Valley farmers to buy some of their Colorado River water.

Less dependent

With all the projects on the board, the authority expects to depend much less on Metropolitan Water District in the future.

At the height of the last drought, in 1991, San Diego County received 95 percent of its water from Metropolitan. Now that proportion is 68 percent, Weinberg said. And by 2020, it is forecast to shrink to 30 percent.

In Riverside County, dependence on Metropolitan will decline, too, but gradually as agencies work to quench the thirst of the state's fastest-growing urban area, officials said.

Customers within Eastern's service area get 60 percent of their water from Metropolitan, while 36 percent of water used in Western's territory is imported.

Western's area is less dependent on Northern California and Colorado River water because it has abundant groundwater, said district spokeswoman Michele McKinney Underwood.

But despite all the projects, there is a limit to what can be done outside the dominant influence of Metropolitan, the primary supplier for 19 million people in six counties.

Said Eastern's Odencrans: "We know we'll never be totally self-sufficient."

Call staff writer Dave Downey at 951-676-4315, ext. 2623.

Local reliance on imported water

(Portion of water in San Diego, Riverside counties from Metropolitan Water District)

Provider Service Area Population 2010 2020

Eastern Municipal Water District 687,000 60 percent 59 percent

San Diego County Water Authority 3 million 68 percent 30 percent

Western Municipal Water District 850,000 36 percent 31 percent

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