More on Pamo Dam

The Jan. 12 letter by Bob Hartman of the Sierra Club attacks Pamo Dam while ignoring the public record on the project. The San Diego County Water Authority has had meetings with the Sierra Club for the last four years to make certain that environmental and other issues are fully understood. As vice chairman of the club, he must be aware of the exhaustive evaluations made of project alternatives, economic analyses and environmental mitigation approaches. The public record on Pamo is more than 1,500 pages long and has taken six years to complete. Instead of resisting input by citizens and agencies, the authority has fully considered every comment on the project.

The authority’s position on Pamo is to fully mitigate the environmental effects of the project. The environmental values that exist in Pamo Valley are a result of the City of San Diego’s foresight in acquiring the site in 1925 for a reservoir. Development in Pamo Valley has been nearly stopped because of that proposed use. Without the reservoir purpose, the valley would have been developed and both the environmental and water supply values lost. The authority proposes to develop sufficient riparian habitat and oak woodlands to completely offset the loss of such values from the project.

The real question regarding the Pamo project involves the question of emergency water supply. The San Diego region is at the end of very long pipelines. All of the pipelines cross the San Andreas fault. A major earthquake is expected on that fault in the next 20 years. Such an earthquake would destroy the aqueducts where they cross the fault and would require six months to re-establish service. In 1985, this region used 365,000 acre-feet of water in six months. The total storage capacity south of the San Andreas fault, yet outside of San Diego County, is 175,000 acre-feet. If the storage was full when the earthquake occurred and if the authority had rights to all of the water, our supply would be very short. In addition, the water demand in this region increases by 10,000 acre-feet each year.

The San Diego region has existing, major storage reservoirs that would be used to supplement the emergency supply. However, they were all built more than 40 years ago. The areas of the county that had development 40 years ago are protected by these reservoirs. Development since that time has occurred in areas without any backup supply. In an emergency, Pamo Dam will supply 500,000 people who presently have no access to major reservoir storage. The only real criticism of the Pamo project is that it had been delayed so long.

To suggest, as Hartman does, that federal and state agencies have found that the public would not benefit from the project is insulting to those agencies. They have protection of the environment as their primary responsibility. The Corps of Engineers has the responsibility for determining if the project is in the public interest. The Corps is weighing the value of protecting the human environment as well as the natural environment. They are aware of the emergency risks facing the region and also that the voters approved of the project in the November, 1984, election. Those considerations put far more pressure on the Corps than what the Authority could exert.

Lastly, a statement should be made about the economic issue raised by Hartman. The Pamo project produces revenue from the capture and sale of water, hydroelectric generation and from leasing storage to the Metropolitan Water District. These sources will repay the $82-million cost in 13 average runoff years. If the project had been in operation in January, 1978, the beginning of a cycle of wet years, it would be paid for by now. The economic issue isn’t can we pay for the project, but rather can we afford the risk of not having a reliable water supply.

FRANCESCA M. KRAUEL

Vice Chairman

San Diego County Water Authority