By Frank Landis, Chair Conservation Committee
For whatever reason, this month seems to be about water issues. The big one, which those on the CNPSSD Discussion Group have already seen, is a proposal to run a pipe from Imperial to San Diego. I’m not sure when the idea first surfaced, but it’s been mostly associated with Jim Madaffer, a director of the San Diego County Water Authority, and it has been around since before 2017. But as with all creeping projects in our area, it’s surfacing again.
The idea is for San Diego to become “water independent” by getting water directly from the Colorado River. Well, directly from Imperial Irrigation District, meaning directly from the All American Canal. The problem is they are trying to solve is not that San Diego doesn’t get water from the Colorado River via the IID (we do), but that it flows through pipes controlled by the Metropolitan Water District, whom our Water Authority has issues with.
The outline of this “crazy idea” (per Madaffer, https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/science- environment/pipe-dream-bring-colorado-river-water-san-diego-re-emerges/) is to pump water from the All American Canal, up over Anza-Borrego State Park, through the Cuyamaca Mountains (Madaffer is purportedly partial to the idea that Elon Musk’s Boring Company would drill this tunnel, because he’s a Musk fan), using 47 miles of canals, 39 miles of pipeline, and 47 miles of tunnel, for a mere five billion dollars. Probably we’d need to build a billion-dollar desalination plant, too, because Colorado water is the effluent from many saline farms upstream.
But wait, there’s more. In some versions of the project, Madaffer has proposed piping treated sewage effluent in a separate pipe back to the Salton Sea. That’s another five billion dollars, and another treatment plant. And, of course, shipping sewage to Imperial County is a shining example of environmental justice.
The Water Authority itself says that the project would start benefitting ratepayers as early as 2062, and would possibly be in the black in 2080 at the earliest. Nonetheless, Madaffer has convinced the six Water Authority directors from the City of San Diego to approve further study of the project. This despite the fact that 18 of the Water Authority’s 24 member agencies had serious issues with this idea.
The problem is that the ratepayers of the Water Authority collectively use around 400,000 acre-feet of water per year, of which 200,000 acre-feet per year come from the IID, and we’re only contracted to get it through around 2045, although we can renegotiate. In comparison, The Pure Water Recycling Project is slated to handle 30 million gallons per day, which is a bit over 33,000 acre-feet per year.
So, I get why the Water Authority is freaking out. What I don’t get is why anyone thinks a project that won’t be available for decades will solve the problem we have now.
The bigger problem is that the Colorado River is used to around 20,000,000 acre-feet of water per year, and it normally carries around 12-15,000,000 acre-feet. And dropping. If Lake Mead hits the dreaded “Dead Pool” low, it’s not clear whether the Colorado will flow to the All American Canal at all, because no one has tested the Colorado Compact over water rights at those extremes. If we can’t count on the Colorado, where will SanDiego Water Authority get water for us?
I suppose we could spend another billion or two and pipe San Diego effluent all the way to the Colorado, so that Mexico gets its share. Unfortunately for Southern California, if and when the Salton Sea goes dry, it’s not just an ecosystem death, it’s a public health nightmare. As with Owen’s Lake, the bed of the Salton Sea will dry out to produce ultra-fine dust (PM 10 and smaller) that contains all the *interesting* agricultural runoff chemicals that were pumped to the Salton Sea over the decades. That dust will blow through the Imperial Valley and even to LA and San Diego during strong Santa Anas. You like wearing face masks? It will become normal during every wind storm. Not good for the native species either.
So, that’s one problem. I’m going to link it to another water issue, because I think there’s a partial solution to both.
The second problem is that City of San Diego has about a five billion dollar deficit in infrastructure (https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/government/san-diegos-infrastructure-deficit-is-really-a-stormwater-deficit/). That breaks down to:
• Stormwater: $1.478 billion
• Pure Water Potable Reuse: $1.222 billion• Water $0.790 billion
• Wastewater: $0.644 billion
Etc. (parks has “only” $91 million in unmet needs). The water issues alone are around $4.134 billion in unmet infrastructure issues. Add another $6 billion to that without adding any more water? Seriously?
Now, I’m not a big fan of the Stormwater Division. I remember that for a number of years my comment letter on theStormwater Master Plan EIR was the longest I’d ever written. That I’m willing to cut Stormwater any slack at all comes from the long series of truly abysmal documents I’ve had to slog through in the years since I read their poor documentation. But we have got to work with them, and hope their engineers are better than their EIR writers.
We all suffer from water failures. These include neighborhoods flooding during storms, urban runoff making the sea too toxic to swim in, stormwater scouring canyons and dumping sediment in coastal marshes, and weeds like pampas grass, tamarisk, and palms clogging up what used to be ephemeral creeks. And then there are all the busted structures losing water, leaking sewage, and causing potholes, sinkholes, and all sorts of other problems.
Here’s where we enter the labyrinth, because this $4 billionwater infrastructure deficit is an unholy combination of drinking water coming in (largely from the Colorado), former Colorado River water headed out to sea as our sewage, rainwater flushed off our impervious urban spaces and into pipes and canyons, and all the effluent these systems combine into when they break.
To me, it looks like the solution to this involves a lot of moving pieces:
Wean ourselves off Colorado River water. The river may well dry up, and even if it doesn’t, we have to find carbon-neutral ways to pump it and maintain the infrastructure that pipes it here. Better to limit that as much as we can.
Get our clean water and sewage separated by fixing the pipes.
The big one: divert as much stormwater as possible away from the stormwater system. When it first falls, it’s rainwater, not a liquid that’s notoriously “too thick to drink, too thin to plow” like Colorado River water. While it makes sense to move stormwater away from areas that flood, a huge amount of our piped water goes to landscaping, gardening, and agriculture. Getting these watered by the rain as much as possible makes a lot of sense. This is something CNPS knows a lot about already, and we’re in a good spot to do much more in coming years.
Take environmental justice seriously. Those neighborhoods that flood during storms mostly aren’t very wealthy. And most of the people in Imperial County aren’t very wealthy either. Taking water from Imperial County while mixing rainwater with sewage in poor neighborhoods is the worst option. Dumping that mess into canyons then impacts the native plants CNPS cares about. We all need the same set of fixes.
And yes, climate change. San Diego is not blessed with a lot of carbon sinks to capture our emissions. The big sinks include farms, riparian forests, marshes, salt marshes, and eelgrass beds. All of these could benefit from more rainwater and less salty, toxic crap flowing into them. Sewage and even salty Colorado River water limit their ability to sequester carbon.
After due consideration, I think that CNPSSD Discussion Group member Phil Rouillard’s suggestion is the best one: This is a good issue to write to City of San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria (MayorToddGloria@sandiego.gov). Jim Madoff’s boss. Respectfully suggest that, if he’s serious about dealing with climate change, environmental justice, the biodiversity crisis, and our infrastructure crisis, that he would do better to help focus on cleaning up the water mess we have on this side of the mountains, getting everyone into the business of capturing San Diego rainwater and using it instead of dumping it, and letting Imperial County put more river water into the Salton Sea.
It’s certainly not an easy task, but it’s better than blowing any part of five billion on a crazy idea.