Risking Our Future

Published: Tuesday, March 6, 2007 1:35 PM PST

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Management of San Diego County's water supply is not a single-issue. The comments by readers regarding the need for or practicality of water conservation touch on the complexity of this issue. Is conservation the answer? No. Is it a critical component of how we manage our water supply portfolio to ensure a safe, reliable and adequate water supply is available to both residents and businesses in San Diego County? Absolutely!

According to SANDAG's projections, most of our future population growth is a natural increase attributable to births over deaths in San Diego County. Getting water supply right is about the quality of life and economic future of our children and grandchildren. Unfortunately, there is not a single answer to achieving water supply reliability. Conservation is not only a necessity of living in an arid climate, but it is our obligation as good stewards of a scarce resource. It is also our cheapest source of new water. By saving water, we not only offset a need for additional water but also reduce the need for even more new and expensive supplies.

Diversification of our water supply has been the primary objective of the water authority and its 24 member agencies for over 15 years. There are many ways we have worked to achieve water supply reliability:

The increased use of recycled wastewater that is now discharged to the ocean.

Ensuring that San Diego has a long-term supply of the most reliable Colorado River water available, with water rights senior to the rest of southern California through a water transfer agreement with the Imperial Irrigation District and water from the lining of the All-American and Coachella canals.

Building almost 200,000 acre-feet of new water storage facilities in San Diego County.

Desalting brackish groundwater and seawater.

Building and maintaining the infrastructure needed to supply the 3.7 million people that will live in San Diego County by 2020.

All of these efforts are critical to achieving our goal of a diversified water portfolio and a more reliable water supply in 2020. Water conservation, more than any single supply source, requires an individual commitment of all the residents and businesses of San Diego to be more water efficient. The impact of choosing low-water-use landscaping, maintaining irrigation systems and turning them off when not needed can have a significant impact on our future water needs. It requires a landscape industry that is trained and promotes water efficiency. It is dependent on a long-term commitment to achieve these goals and it is the one area where collectively and individually we can all make a positive impact. If we don't conserve, if we don't diversify, we are risking the future of San Diego County.

-- FERN STEINER

4 Comments so far on this story...

You still haven't hit the button have you? It's going to boil down to recycling the water that we currently dump into the sea--admit it kiddo, if we don't we won't have any water in the not to distant future! Why don't you explain to all of us about the future of Lake Powell and Lake Meade if they continue to shrink--the water levels continue to get lower and lower!

Posted by Howiek | reply to this comment
March 6, 2007 3:57 am

You can never conserve your way out of the water crisis/shortage the Mayor of San Diego says is going to happen. For every drop we conserve, the expansion growth takes it away. It is less than a zero sum gain, much less. The City misused the funds to repair the infrastructure in the past so now we have more water breaks than we should. Conservation can never make up for one break. Some control (not increased costs) on growth vs water are going to be required. However, politicians only hear the business/development community.

Posted by Rick | reply to this comment
March 7, 2007 8:55 pm

I like and believe in what the Water Authority says, however what the SDWA is doing is another matter. The major capital expeditures are to strengthen the MWD infrastructure. I don't see any increases in the use and implementation of reclaimed water. Nor do I see capital expeditures going towards desalination projects. Status Quo. Ad Hoc.

Posted by Marc Moreland | reply to this comment
March 25, 2007 11:10 pm

When the developer-friendly SD regional governments and planning organizations take a serious approach to limiting on our run away growth, I will consider water conservation.

Posted by BUF | reply to this comment
September 30, 2007 12:21 pm

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