City Measure Requiring Reclaimed Water for Irrigation OKd by Panel

A San Diego City Council committee Wednesday approved an ordinance that would require the use of reclaimed waste water for irrigation of parks, golf courses, greenbelts and crops wherever the water is available.

If approved by the entire council, the law would require developers of projects in some parts of the city to install the dual piping needed for irrigation with reclaimed water, which could add several hundred dollars to the price of a new home. Nevertheless, the ordinance is supported by the Construction Industry Federation.

“We are thinking ahead, and we can capture those (developments) in a sense,” said Councilman Ron Roberts, who has led the city’s water reclamation effort. “We can require those facilities to be built in as part of the process.”

May Have to Switch

In some cases, existing users of potable water and builders altering or remodeling buildings may be forced to switch to reclaimed water.

The ordinance is critical to the Metropolitan Sewerage System’s plans to use as much as 120 million gallons daily of reclaimed sewage for irrigation by the year 2010, freeing potable water for consumption and helping to cope with a severe local water shortage predicted for 2010.

As part of a planned $2.5-billion upgrading of its secondary sewage system, the city of San Diego intends to build six satellite water reclamation plants that would provide treated waste water to areas such as Mission Valley, Otay Mesa, the I-15 corridor and North City.

Later this month, city planners will release a “master plan” detailing the areas that will feed waste water into the reclamation plants and the parts of the city to which the water will be piped through 330 miles of new water mains and 2,200 miles of new pipeline.

High Salt Levels

The proposed legislation also leaves the city the right to regulate--and perhaps ban--self-regenerating home water softeners, which pour high levels of salt into waste water, preventing cost-effective reclamation.

Although the language was reviewed by representatives of the water softener industry, one owner of a water softener leasing company told the Public Services and Safety committee Wednesday that the ordinance would bankrupt him.

“There are people in the water softener industry who have millions and millions of dollars invested in their business,” said Carroll Harryman, who owns a company that leases water softeners to restaurants. “I have several hundred thousand dollars invested. If this ordinance goes forward, I’m out of business.”

Deputy City Manager Roger Frauenfelder conceded that, in some parts of the city, officials may eventually have to force water-softener users to switch from models that empty salts directly into home sewage systems to models that are regenerated at central plants. In that way, the high-salt discharges can be kept out of the water headed for reclamation plants.

Required in Other Cities

“We might have to say, ‘You’re going to have to go with an option that doesn’t put so much salt in the water,’ ” Frauenfelder said. He noted that such requirements already exist in Poway, Santee, Rancho Bernardo and Otay Mesa.

As approved Wednesday by the committee, however, the ordinance imposes no new restrictions on water softeners.

Reclaimed waste water should first be available for farmland irrigation in the San Pasqual Valley by 1991, with larger amounts being produced for various uses by 1995, said Frauenfelder. (The city now produces a small amount of reclaimed water at a Mission Valley water hyacinth facility that is being moved to the San Pasqual Valley).

The proposed city ordinance, which would become the first of its kind in the county, is adapted from a model ordinance written by the San Diego County Water Authority. In a significant change, it eliminates language mandating use of reclaimed water only when it is “economically justified.”

Concerns Expressed

Councilman Bruce Henderson raised concerns that the proposed ordinance shows no regard for developers’ costs. Roberts, however, defended the need to require use of reclaimed water and said that the council does not intend to cause builders hardship.

At two developments being built--Aviara in Carlsbad and phase three of EastLake in Chula Vista--dual piping added $620 and $400, respectively, to the price of each new home, said Peter MacLaggan, water reclamation director for the Water Authority.