Disputed Desalination Bill Advances

Despite objections by water officials from San Diego and around California, the state Senate Appropriations Committee Monday passed, 7 to 1, a measure that could require the agencies to buy up to 8% of their supply in desalinated water.

The measure, sponsored by Assemblyman Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles), now goes to the Senate floor for what could be a nasty fight before the Legislature adjourns for the year.

Polanco’s bill requires local agencies such as the San Diego County Water Authority to figure the “actual cost” for providing additional water to their customers, and then pay that amount to entrepreneurs who build energy-intensive desalination plants that purify seawater for drinking purposes.

Polanco said Monday that the measure is needed to break the “monopoly” of water agencies such as mammoth Metropolitan Water District, as well as provide an incentive for the fledgling desalination industry.

“We’re creating an opportunity for competitiveness,” he said. “Under the current situation, there is none.”

But spokesmen for the water agencies--led by Ben G. Clay, lobbyist for San Diego’s authority--called the Polanco bill a misguided notion that would force expensive desalted water on the public and actually encourage other potential sources of cheap water to increase their price.

In San Diego’s case, the water authority purchases its full supply from MWD at $261 an acre-foot for treated water. An acre-foot is nearly 326,000 gallons a year--enough for two average families.

That contrasts with $1,000 to $2,000 an acre-foot the authority expects to pay for purified water yielded by a desalination project proposed for San Diego Gas & Electric’s Chula Vista power plant. The project, still under consideration by the two agencies, could provide up to 30 million gallons a day, equal to about 5% of the South Bay’s water consumption.

And water officials said Monday that they take issue with the way Polanco’s bill would set the price for the desalted water. Each agency would have to pay a price equal to the “actual cost” of what it would take to expand current water supplies.