San Diego goes ahead with recycled water pilot project ...

Excerpt from the Union Tribune:

Sanders threatens to veto pilot project

30 October 2007

San Diego inched closer to embracing a controversial water recycling program after a City Council vote yesterday, but Mayor Jerry Sanders immediately promised to put a stop to it.

The council voted 5-2 to initiate a pilot program to purify sewage water and deliver it to residents for general use. The action came after the council was briefed on a long-awaited water reuse report.

The city already uses treated water for activities such as landscaping. Sanders, however, opposes allowing people to use the water more directly for such things as drinking and bathing. He threatened to veto the vote yesterday by the council.

The city has taken baby steps on water reuse before. A test in 2005 showed that purified water “easily” met drinking water standards.

The results have not convinced detractors, who call the proposal “toilet to tap.” Supporters call the plan, which has lingered in San Diego for more than a decade, “reservoir augmentation.”

Proponents say the plan could help to solve the city's water woes, which include expensive purchases of supplies from outside the region and increased vulnerability to droughts. Opponents say the water could be unsafe to drink and that cleansing it is too expensive.

Council President Scott Peters, along with members Toni Atkins, Donna Frye, Ben Hueso and Jim Madaffer voted in favor of the plan, while Kevin Faulconer and Tony Young opposed it. Councilman Brian Maienschein missed the meeting to aid fire victims.

Jim Barrett, the city's Water Department director, warned that such a project could cost up to $10 million, money that he does not have in his budget.

He said ratepayers would bear the expense, but Frye said the costs could be offset by grants or loans.

Sanders did not consider funding such a program when he secured a water rate increase this year. Barrett also said it would be nearly impossible to begin the project in 2008 because his department has yet to design or plan it.

The council's action calls for the mayor to launch a one-year pilot program by June and study the implications of proposals to boost the city's water supply. The council also wants a status report by January and for the mayor to begin a series of community forums on the topic that same month.

“Any progress is better than no progress,” Frye said. “I don't know that I'd call it significant, but I'd call it way better than nothing.”

The council also requested a study of the San Vicente Reservoir near Lakeside. Community leaders once urged the city to consider an estimated $210 million plan to pump recycled water into the reservoir.

The council's entire plan may be moot if Sanders' threatened veto holds. Fred Sainz, Sanders' spokesman, called the potential project “a camel's nose under the tent kind of thing” that the mayor won't accept.

“We'd just rather cut this off now, before investing one dollar of ratepayer money in something that just shouldn't be launched,” Sainz said.

The City Council can override mayoral vetoes with a simple majority vote. If that happens, Sainz said Sanders will use “the bully pulpit” to oppose human consumption of recycled water.
Frye said the voting bloc that passed yesterday's measure would stand and that it should force the mayor to hold more public forums citywide to explain the science behind recycled water.

See - San Diego and recycled water.