The 2 Q’s of Water ~
Quality and Quantity:
Maintaining and Improving Water Quality; Technology Increasing San Diego’s Water Quantity
We are often critical of the quality and of the future availability of the quantity of water, yet we may have more to do with both than we have thought possible.
Water Quality
The infrastructure of our water system, the mode of transportation of the water from nature to the consumer causes the need for purifiers such as chlorine to be added to the water. However, what we do on a daily basis in and around where we live also has an impact on the water we pour into our glasses.
According to the San Diego Consumer Confidence Report, the quality of the water stored in our reservoirs “can be negatively impacted by residential and commercial development and routine activity in the watershed land areas draining into them.
“Anyone visiting or occupying our local watershed areas should keep in mind that any chemicals, pesticides, animal waste, trash, soaps, detergents that are dumped into the ground or into streams can affect our drinking water supply.”
Other contaminates result from the following activities: portable toilets, sewage holding tanks, parking lots, gas stations, dry cleaners, storm-drain discharge points, airport fueling, wastewater treatment facilities, water-supply wells, recent burn areas, historical mines, surface water recreation areas, repair shops, grazing, low density septic systems, active mining operations, storm-water detention facilities, fertilizer/ pesticide/ herbicide applications, body shops and unauthorized dumping.
By being aware of our activities and ways to prevent contaminates from entering the water supply, such as using organic, biodegradable, non-toxic products, we have the opportunity to help improve water quality.
Also, when you think about all of these possible contaminants in the water and then you review the Consumer Confidence Reports detailing the water quality tests, the current systems are doing a very good job.
There is still room for improvement, but much of this improvement can be made by purchasing a water purification system for your home; by doing your part to pay attention to and correct the negative ways you potentially impact the water supply; and through reading your local water report to make sure the water authority is paying attention to your needs as a consumer.
Water Quantity - New Technology Challenges Old Fears
The key to water is that it is always recyclable and reused over and over throughout time. This is one of the hardest things for us to think about because of our fear of waste products and waste water.
San Diego is on the verge of combating those same fears with its new project that will reuse waste water at the pilot plant project to store treated and re-treated waste water at a reservoir for later use as drinking water.
A recent article in The San Diego Union Tribune featured a picture of engineer Bill Pearce taking a swig of the treated water which has been treated to the point where he said government-regulated contaminants were undetectable. The water from the plant, he said, is, “just as good or better than the water taken from the Colorado River . The process includes pumping the highly treated waste water into reservoirs where it would mix with ‘raw' water from the Colorado River or from Northern California before being treated again for home delivery.”
The City of Carlsbad is also working toward another solution with the construction of a new desalination plant at the Encina Power Station in Carlsbad .
On a recent visit to the pilot plant, I spoke with Peter MacLaggan, Senior Vice President of Project Development for Poseidon Resources who told me about the project that will produce 50 million gallons of water per day. The city of Carlsbad only uses 25 million gallons per day, so the balance will be sold to other cities in the surrounding area.
The plant will cost about $230 million to build and the pipeline will cost about $40 million to construct. The costs for the plant and pipeline are paid for by Poseidon Resources which has contracted with the City of Carlsbad for 30 years to provide the water at rates competitive to those that the city has been paying for water from outside sources.
The public-private partnership was approved on October 19, 2004 by the Carlsbad City Council.
According to Poseidon Resources, “Approval of the Water Purchase Agreement ensures that Carlsbad will secure a cost-certain, locally controlled, drought-proof supply of water with all the risk borne by the private sector. The agreement also keeps the project on schedule, allowing for the timely and cost-effective completion of a critical component of the region's water infrastructure.”
The public-private partnership of the City of Carlsbad and Poseidon Resources seems to be a win-win for everyone involved. The Carlsbad plant construction costs are being paid for by Poseidon Resources. The project is funded by private-sector financing based on the 30-year contract with the City of Carlsbad . The rate payers also have a guarantee in the contract that rates will not increase more than the consumer price index (cpi) which is currently 2.71% per year.
The quality of the water is equal to, or better than, the water from outside sources because the seawater is piped through a series of filters that remove impurities so small they can't be seen with the naked ‘eye.' Chemicals are added to the water to further purify it before it is sent through the reverse osmosis (R.O.) system that removes the salt and other impurities remaining in filtered seawater. One out of every two gallons of seawater processes into ultra high-quality fresh water. The other gallon of water is used to carry the salts removed by the R.O. process to seawater coming from the power plant and is returned back to the ocean.
Initially before I toured the plant, I thought that the sea water would be extracted from the ocean and desalinized, so I was concerned that if many more desalination plants opened up, somehow the balance of sea water and fresh water would be disturbed. Then I found out some very interesting information. The water that is being desalinized is sea water that is typically used to cool the reactor. The water returned through the reverse-osmosis system ultimately releases water with a higher salt concentration. This higher salt concentration has proved to have no effect on the sea life in the area. In conjunction with this, another interesting thing I discovered is that the ocean water is becoming less salty due to the increase of fresh water run off due to global warming.
“Since the late 1960's, much of the North Atlantic Ocean has become less salty, in part due to increases in fresh-water runoff induced by global warming, scientists say,” according to a recent article by Michael Schirber, LiveScience Staff Writer on LiveScience.com.
In the article, Schirber interviewed Ruth Curry of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) who, with Cecilie Mauritzen of the Norwegian Meteorological Institute, calculated that an extra 19,000 cubic kilometers of water flowed into and diluted the northern seas between 1965 and 1995.
“Precipitation and river runoff at high latitudes have been increasing,” said Ruth Curry of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). “In the last decade, fresh water has been accumulating in the Nordic Seas layer (the upper 1,000 meters) that is critical to the ocean conveyor, so it is something to watch.”
Therefore, desalinization may actually assist in maintaining balance in the oceans by adding the higher salt-concentrated water.
Technology and innovation, with regards to water processing, may increase the amount of water available, however it is up to us as consumers to be informed on ways we can improve our water supply. Through participation, we may be able to achieve the perfect balance with nature and potentially, even surprise ourselves.
To contribute information or story ideas email Ann Diener at raven_knight@sbcglobal.net
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