San Diego City Council put a toe into the water debate this week, but didn't wade in very deep. However, during the Water Summit at City Hall they splashed around in the issues long enough to reveal disagreements about mandatory water rationing and water reclamation. KPBS reporter Alison St John has more.
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders warned the council not to get in over its head with mandatory water conservation.
Sanders: Because hasty moves could damage the economy. If we take a thoughtful approach to it if we challenge everyone in San Diego to participate in the 20 Gallon Challenge then I think we have a way to stretch our water.
The mayor acknowledges that water shortages could be a major problem in the coming year but he advocates voluntary conservation for the moment.
Taking the opposite tack, City Attorney Mike Aguirre cited a book he has been reading this summer, "The Deluge," which details everything local authorities did not do in New Orleans before the hurricane.
Aguirre: Failing to take preventative steps to avoid an avoidable catastrophe that struck the city, and in reading that book, it raised a question in my mind that we were doing something similar with regards to water.
Aguirre grilled Maureen Stapleton, General Manager of the San Diego County Water Authority , which provides the city with 90 percent of its water. He searched for evidence the region is facing an imminent water crisis and should be mandating water rationing already.
But Stapleton said the County has enough water in storage to last two-and-a-half years. She said reservoirs levels of just over 50 percent are normal for the end of the summer and it's too soon to cry wolf.
Stapleton: It is very important that our community believe what we say, and that when we ask for things that we really need them, and this community has responded time and again when we asked for voluntary conservation in the 1970 drought in the 1980 and 1990 drought we never did move to mandatory conservation and this community conserved well over 20 percent.
However Stapleton did reserve the right to change her mind and come back in the spring with calls for mandatory water conservation, depending on the result of the snow melt.
Environmental attorney Marco Gonzales says calls for voluntary recycling might be less effective this year, coming from City Hall.
Gonzales: Why should I give back any effort to a city that is going to turn around squander my resources and support unnecessary development. So simply saying “do good people because we're your city council, we're your leadership” it isn't going to work.
Gonzalez also believes the city needs to do a demo project to see how water reclamation would work. He says it's crazy to dump 175 million gallons of partially treated water into the ocean at Point Loma every day.
The mayor has taken a position against water reclamation but he may be swimming against the current. City Councilman Jim Madaffer waded in with the opposite opinion. He says he wants to find out more about it and called the toilet to tap label "unfortunate."
Madaffer: Because the reality is that any water you're drinking is toilet to tap when you get right down to it. So I think at some point we have to recognize we are at the end of the line so it's important that we really hear this water reuse study. We haven't seen it at city council yet.
The Council agreed to consider the water reuse study at a meeting later this month.
Bruce Resnick of San Diego Coastkeeper says its not a matter of choosing between conservation, reclamation and desalination. He says the region will probably need all three. But he wants the city to stop treading water and start prioritizing.
Resnick: Too often, our elected officials are weather vanes when we need compasses and the debate on water in San Diego is too crucial to allow this to continue to be a political football.
Resnick says almost 20 percent of California's energy use is moving water from north to south. So raising the level of awareness could float two boats at once, and result in both water and energy conservation.
Water issues will only deepen in coming weeks and months. The next city council meetings on water reuse will be on October 24th and 29th.
Alison St John, KPBS News.
