Water leaders adopt new long-range plan

By: GIG CONAUGHTON - Staff Writer | Thursday, November 17, 2005 11:35 PM PST ∞

SAN DIEGO ---- Regional water officials adopted a new 25-year water supply plan Thursday that counts heavily upon residents cutting water use more than ever before.

The plan also will rely on the building of plants to turn seawater into drinking water and boosting ground water and waste-water uses.

The 191-page plan, approved by the San Diego County Water Authority board, spells out exactly how and from where residents can expect to get all the water they will need through 2030. The Water Authority supplies nearly all the water county residents use each year, mainly by buying and importing water from the Colorado River and Northern California.

Water agencies statewide are required to update their urban water plans every five years, and Water Authority officials have been working on their new plan for the last year.

Water Authority officials said the biggest difference between the new plan and previous incarnations is that the new one illustrates that the agency has become a full-fledged water supplier.

For most of its 61-year history, the Water Authority has been mostly a "pipeline" agency, one willing to buy nearly all of its water from Southern California's main water supplier ---- the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water district ---- and deliver it to county residents.

That changed drastically in 2003, when the Water Authority reached a deal to buy billions of gallons of water from Imperial Valley farmers through 2045, and possibly 2075.

The result is that while the Water Authority bought 85 percent of the county's water from Metropolitan as recently in 2004 ---- the new plan predicts cutting that reliance to 32 percent by 2030.

"The '05 plan identifies for the first time that the Water Authority has its own supply ---- not just from Met," Dana Friehauf, senior water resources planner for the Water Authority said.

The new plan relies mainly upon the Imperial Valley water transfer and a subsidiary deal to be the main replacements for the water that would have been bought from Metropolitan.

The transfer itself, which ramps up slowly throughout 19 years, will provide 21 percent of all of the county's water supply by 2030, enough water to sustain 400,000 households a year.

Another 8 percent ---- enough water to sustain an additional 154,000 households a year ---- will come from a canal-lining deal attached to the transfer.

The Water Authority plans to line earthen canals in Imperial Valley. The water that will no longer percolate into the desert soil, 25 billion gallons a year, will be shipped to San Diego County residents for 100 years.

But the new plan also hopes to boost water supplies by more than doubling conservation.

That means getting residents and businesses to cut water use even more than they already have in recent decades through the use of low-flush toilets, low-flow shower heads and other measures.

Water officials track conservation efforts ---- such as the installation of low-flow shower heads ---- and chart the amount of water they save. That allows them to compare the "conserved" water to their total water supply and track it as a percentage.

In 2004, conservation equalled 4 percent of the total local water supply.

The new plan hopes to push that to 12 percent by 2030 ---- by more than 100,000 acre feet or by enough water that could have sustained 200,000 homes.

Friehauf said the agency hopes that can be accomplished by cutting outdoor water use, which water officials say makes up 50 percent of all residential water use.

The new plan also:

Creates a goal that water agencies can more than double the production of groundwater projects ---- projects that store or clean water in porous rock underground. Groundwater storage projects made up just 2 percent of the county's total water supplies in 2004. The new plan predicts that will jump to 5 percent by 2030.

Triples the input from recycled water projects ---- programs that treat sewer water so it can be used for irrigation purposes. Recycled water also accounted for just 2 percent of the local supply in 2004. The new plan projects that to jump to 6 percent of supply by 2030.

Expects to build plants capable of turning 80,000 acre-feet a year of seawater into drinking water. That expectation is based mainly upon reaching a deal with Poseidon Inc., a private company, to build a seawater desalination plant at the Encina Power Plant in Carlsbad.

Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com