Water Reclamation

By Ryan Huckabone

San Diego needs to support local water reclamation programs which would save the area millions of gallons each year.

The City has built two Water Reclamation facilities to help with this need. The North City Water Reclamation Plant and South Bay Water Reclamation Plant can treat a combined 45 million gallons of wastewater each day. (Source: http://www.sandiego.gov/water/recycled/index.shtml) The City has begun laying a "purple-pipe" water distribution system to areas near each of these plants so customers can utilize the reclaimed water for irrigation, manufacturing and other non-drinking purposes. The cost of laying this purple pipeline to allow individual customers to hook-up to it has proven to be extremely expensive to the taxpayers.

Due to a lack of customers and the cost of building a new pipeline, only a portion of the reclaimed water produced at these facilities each day will ever be used by an end customer. The majority of the water is put back into the sewer lines and pumped to the Pt. Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant then out to the ocean outfalls miles offshore. As your Councilman, I would propose a plan that would guarantee 100% of the reclaimed water produced each day in San Diego would be used by an end customer.

According to the City of San Diego's "Rules and Regulations for Recycled Water Use and Distribution with the City of San Diego", September 2008 Section 3.11 "Authorized Uses of Recycled Water" states, "The uses of recycled water may include...recreational impoundment." This same document defines "recreational impoundment" as "a body of water used for recreational activities including, but not limited to, fishing, boating, and/or swimming." That sounds a lot like lake, river or reservoir water to me.

If elected, I will endorse and support a single, "purple-water" main pipeline be constructed to take recycled water from the above mentioned water reclamation facilities directly to the area's nearest reservoir as part of a reservoir augmentation program. This program is badly needed as most of our region's water reservoirs are severely below their capacity. For example, the San Vicente and Sutherland reservoirs are at 37.9% and 11.9% capacity, respectively. Source: http://www.sandiego.gov/water/recreation/levels.shtml

A second major source of potential reclaimed water is from our storm drain system. All storm drain water runs directly to our bays and ocean via pipes, streams and rivers. If elected, I would suggest the City construct a cistern system along 5 major storm water outlets throughout the city. Storm water could be captured in the cisterns and pumped to the water reclamation plants for treatment before being pumped up to the reservoirs. From the reservoirs, the water will flow to one of San Diego's three Water Treatment Plants to be processed and treated before being pumped to customer's homes as potable water.

Drinking water is the most important resource in our city's future. We must begin constructing an infrastructure that will reduce San Diego's reliance on imported water now.