Turning thin air into water

Local officials are looking outside of the box for solutions to the area’s impending growth and the future demand for available water

BY KATHY JOHNSTON

Ever wondered where your water comes from? Don’t say the faucet.

Sprinklers all over the southern edge of San Luis Obispo are keeping new lawns lush and green, while inside new homes families are washing and flushing. The dry winter has left some folks scratching their heads and wondering where all the water for this new growth is coming from.

With the city’s two big water supply projects–Nacimiento and the Salinas Dam expansion–not exactly dead in the water but possibly heading down the drain, some out-of-the-box thinking is flowing to make sure there’s enough of the precious fluid for SLO’s future.

Whatever the solution, developers are being asked to pay their fair share. The SLO City Council will consider on Tuesday whether to raise the water fees for future growth to more than $11,000 per single-family home to help pay for new supply sources.

Meanwhile, there’s a surprising answer to the question about where the water is coming from for all those new faucets and sprinklers: It’s conservation. Even with new development, total water use in SLO is less today than it was five years ago, thanks to one of the most aggressive conservation programs in the state.

"Conservation is proving to be our cheapest source of supply," said Gary Henderson, the city’s water division manager. "This community has done an excellent job."

Low-flow toilets and shower heads are a major component of the decrease in water use. Under the city’s retrofitting program, developers have been required to replace enough of the old-style flushers and gushers to free up water for new growth. The program has been so successful that today, most of the old fixtures in town have been replaced with the more water-efficient models.

Water-efficient washing machines can also be found in more and more city homes, thanks to a $150 rebate offered to San Luis residents who buy the new models. A Maytag Neptune, for example, uses about 20 gallons for a load of laundry, compared to 40 gallons for normal washing machines.

The city’s conservation strategy has not been wishy-washy about irrigation, either. Nearly half of SLO’s water use goes for sprinklers and irrigation systems for landscaping. A major public education effort combined with free "Green Gardener" workshops for landscape professionals is percolating through to greater water efficiency in local gardens.

"We’ve made great strides in efficient outdoor use of water," said SLO’s utilities conservation coordinator, Ron Munds. "We’re seeing shutoff valves on hoses, and better programming on automatic irrigation controllers. At all those new houses off Tank Farm, we’re not seeing very big lawns. We don’t want to interfere with people’s decisions about their landscaping; it’s still a free country. We want to educate people on better alternatives, not dictate."

Water bills play another part in SLO’s conservation success story. Unlike some local communities that charge a flat fee no matter how little water is used in a household, San Luis has a rate structure that rewards water efficiency: The less you use, the less you pay.

After living through the drought of the early ‘90s, local folks have adopted a new water ethic. "You don’t see the hose running while people are washing their cars anymore," said Henderson, while Munds noted, "Now even my kids will say, ‘Dad, turn that off,’ if I leave the faucet running for even two seconds while I’m brushing my teeth."

Munds added, "Even with an increase in population, our water use has decreased. It is amazing what water conservation can do. Plus there’s a tremendous environmental benefit. We pump less and treat less water so there’s an energy savings. And if we don’t have to find new water sources, it saves everybody money."

In pre-drought days when the city seemed awash with water, the figures show that total water use was equivalent to 182 gallons per person per day. With drastic penalties during the drought, use dropped to 86 gallons per person per day, then crept back up to 132 gallons per person per day five years ago.

Today, that figure has stabilized around 118 gallons per person per day–an amount derived by dividing the city’s entire water use by the total population, disregarding the daily influx of workers, students, and tourists.

"Can we maintain that low level? I believe we can. The citizens should be commended for doing a fantastic job on water conservation. We’re a model for other communities," Henderson said.

People who live outside San Luis may have something to learn from the city’s success at conservation, according to Munds. "Most communities and CSDs in this county are limited in new water supplies. Conservation is the cheapest source," he said.

Already, Munds is working with water officials in Atascadero, Templeton, and Paso Robles in a new group called Partners in Water Conservation. "It’s been a long time coming, but finally there’s some interest in our county to look at water conservation in a more cooperative way," he said.

REUSE IT, DON’T LOSE IT

Even with its aggressive water conservation strategy, SLO still needs to find more water to meet the demands of the expected population of 56,000 the general plan allows for after build-out. The first place water planners are looking may seem unlikely–the wastewater treatment plant on Prado Road, where state requirements for tertiary treatment of sewage have created a new water source.

Rather than just letting all of this high-quality water flow into San Luis Obispo Creek, the plan is to use it to irrigate local parks, sports fields, and golf courses. A 10-year effort has finally yielded all the necessary permits from the State Water Resources Control Board and the National Marine Fisheries Service, and design work is well under way.

The $14-million Water Reuse Project, as it’s officially called, recently received a $3.39-million state grant from the March 2000 voter-approved Proposition 13. Another $8 million will come to SLO in the form of a low-interest loan.

"Here we take water that’s flushed down the drains and use it one more time," Henderson explained. "Why use potable water to irrigate parks when we can use recycled water? Our motto is: ‘Reusing a valuable resource.’ "

Recycled water should be flowing through a new network of pipelines in the southern part of San Luis by summer 2004, said Dave Pierce, the city’s water projects manager. "We need water, and this is water that’s more than good enough to irrigate with. The health department has done studies saying this water is good enough to irrigate cauliflower and broccoli. The Pebble Beach Golf Course is irrigated with recycled water. If it’s good enough for Pebble Beach, our golf courses will do just fine," Pierce added.

He said the phosphorus and nitrogen in the treated sewage are "good for grass," so fertilizer use can be reduced. Any heavy metals in the wastewater stream end up in the sewage sludge rather than the recycled water, and salts are within tolerable levels for plants, according to Pierce.

Salts are a major component of another future water source under consideration for San Luis: seawater. The City Council recently approved a study of the possibility of using Morro Bay’s mothballed desalination plant to supply both cities’ needs.

"Morro Bay has a well-constructed desal plant that’s just sitting there," Henderson noted. "There is some potential there."

The desal plant was built during the drought in 1991, and was operated at that time for eight months, according to Bill Boucher, Morro Bay’s capital projects manager. It’s been turned on just a few times since then, Boucher said, but isn’t used now "because State Water meets all of our demands, and frankly, the cost of operation, primarily due to electricity, is high."

Morro Bay is still paying $541,000 a year to cover the construction costs for the desal plant, which sits unused in a beige metal building in the city storage yard on Atascadero Road. Its components have been pickled to prevent rust.

"Desal plants don’t lend themselves to being turned on and off at the flick of a switch," said Henderson. "Plus you need state-certified operators to run the plant, and Morro Bay doesn’t have any."

San Luis Obispo city staff members are discussing the possibility of joint use of the desal plant to help meet Morro Bay’s peak summer demand and SLO’s ongoing demand. "There may be an opportunity to work together and benefit both cities. If you have a number of sources, you can use these resources together," Henderson said.

The plant already has a permit to discharge high-salt brine into the bay at the Duke Energy outfall pipe, and Henderson said he is researching new membranes that would require less energy for the reverse-osmosis desalination plant. Capacity at the plant could also be increased.

"It’s an opportunity to work together. It could be a win-win situation," he added.

WELL, WELL, HERE’S ANOTHER SOURCE

Groundwater is another possibility to meet SLO’s future water demand. City officials are talking with agriculture users within the city limits to see if recycled water could be used for irrigation instead of groundwater.

"Our preliminary analysis shows there are increased opportunities for groundwater pumping, but there could be impacts to creeks; it’s hard to qualitatively document," said Henderson.

SLO’s groundwater is also contaminated with nitrates and with a chemical solvent once used for dry cleaning called PCE. "We can take care of the PCE and remove the nitrates at our water treatment plant, but what do you do with the waste stream of brine?" he said. "The solution people suggest–‘Oh, just pump groundwater’–sounds easy, and in other communities it is, but here it’s a full circle. You have to look at the whole picture and take the global view."

San Luis Obispo’s groundwater basin is very small compared to the one that lies under Paso Robles. In fact, preliminary results of an extensive groundwater study in the North County indicate that Paso Robles has a huge underground basin that occasionally fluctuates in size but is not currently considered to be in overdraft.

That means Paso Robles is feeling less pressure to join the expensive Nacimiento project, which would involve building a long pipeline from Lake Nacimiento along the eastern side of the Salinas River to carry water to Paso, Templeton, Atascadero, and eventually to San Luis. "There is concern whether there will be enough agencies to participate in the Nacimiento project to make it worthwhile. There are issues of whether the timing is right for all the agencies," Henderson noted.

Another project that’s been on the city’s drawing board for over a decade may also have met its Waterloo: the Salinas Reservoir Expansion Project.

Estimated costs for this project at the North County reservoir, also called Santa Margarita Lake, have soared with the recent confirmation from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation that the dam would require an extensive and expensive repair job before it could safely hold back all the water in an expanded reservoir. Environmental destruction at scenic Santa Margarita Lake Regional Park from the dam expansion project is another deterring factor.

The assumptions about the best new water supply source for San Luis have changed over the last decade. The assumptions about just how much water will be needed in the future may also be changing.

Henderson is preparing a report for a June City Council meeting with details of all the potential supply sources and the expected demand. One solution may be for the council to simply change the amount of water required for the city’s "reliability reserve," a concept approved by drought-stricken city voters during the last decade and now part of the city’s charter. Developing this reserve is considered the largest component of future water supply costs.

The amount of water contained in the "reliability reserve," set by an earlier council at 2,000 acre-feet, is based on the worst drought on record and a projected demand of 145 gallons per person per day (compared to the current actual usage of 118 gallons), according to a report prepared by Henderson for Tuesday’s council meeting. "This is an issue the council may want to address when it next reviews the Annual Water Resources Status Report" in June, Henderson’s report states.

That’s the best idea yet, according to City Council member Christine Mulholland, an outspoken critic of both the Salinas Reservoir Expansion Project and the Nacimiento Pipeline Project. "By changing our reliability reserve allocation and increasing our groundwater use, plus more conservation and water reuse, maybe we can live within our means, with enough supply for build-out. I’ve talked to a lot of city residents door-to-door, and I didn’t find one person who wants their water rates to go up to pay for new growth and development. Do we want these huge projects?" Mulholland said.

For Henderson, the idea of working cooperatively as a region holds promise. "New water supply costs are always going up, and they’re not going to get any cheaper. The issues are getting more and more difficult.

"We need to look more and more at regional opportunities to work together. There’s probably enough water to go around if we all work together."Æ

‘New Times’ contributing writer Kathy Johnston can be reached for comments or story ideas through the editor at [email protected].