A View From Harbor Street
By David Buckingham

We have a water problem. That of course, is not news, but it should be a call to action, action at the individual level, and perhaps more importantly right now, in Morro Bay, action at the municipal level.
While we can and must make conservation a priority (and our residents, businesses and City are taking solid conservation steps) we need to think, plan and act seriously about securing our water supply for the next 50 years.
Thankfully, Morro Bay has options, infrastructure and opportunities that other drought-stricken communities would love to have. The solutions are not easy, but can be easily imagined and, with good planning and serious implementation, we could attain a more reliable, more sustainable and, perhaps, compared to other communities, more affordable water balance in the decades ahead.
Wisely, one of the goals the City adopted earlier this year was to “improve water supply diversification.” City leadership identified our water supply as a problem requiring serious action and set a number of objectives — from conservation to supply to purity — to begin to address that problem.
Currently, our primary source of water is the State Water Project. Years ago the City bought into a state water contract and we pay about $1,600 per acre-foot for potable (drinking) water.  (The entire city uses about 3 acre-feet of water a day.)
While this has been a reasonably effective system to this point (although we are on the hook to pay the State a contracted amount no matter how much water they are able to deliver to us), with huge state water supply challenges and massive state infrastructure projects (and thus likely further increased costs) in the years ahead, we should explore options to get off of state water. Options do exist.
Today, as you are reading this column, we will dump of over 850,000 gallons of treated wastewater out to sea. For a community in drought that uses about a million gallons of water each day, that sounds crazy.
So, completing the managed retreat of our wastewater treatment plant off the beach, and adding a water reclamation component to that system, makes lots of sense when it comes to diversifying our water supply for the next 50 years.
Whether the super-purified water coming out of our future water reclamation facility is put into the ground so that we can pump it out of our wells, treat it, and deliver it to customers, or, whether future treatment standards allow for direct potable reuse, we have the potential of recovering and using nearly as much water as we currently get delivered from the State.
Whether from agriculture or other sources, we do have some manageable purity challenges with our Morro Creek basin wells (at Lila Keiser Park). However, adding over a million gallons a day of highly cleaned water from a new water reclamation facility has the potential of solving a significant part of our water supply problem to help us get out of the State Water Project vice.
Another supply opportunity is our desalinization facility. As noted above, State Water costs about $1,600 per acre-foot. Our small desal plant can turn seawater into drinking water for about the same cost — primarily electricity.
Since it is likely the cost for state water will increase far faster than the cost of electricity, seawater desal would further diversify, and further strengthen our water supply fairly economically.
Further, while we are locked into the State Water Project contract for eight more years, our desal plant can turn high-nitrate, brackish water from our lower Morro Valley wells, into pure drinking water for around $1,000 per acre foot. Unfortunately, back in 2000, Morro Bay allowed our desal permits to expire. One key water-related objective we have this year is to complete Coastal Commission permitting of our desal operations.
Thinking regionally and even more broadly, perhaps Morro Bay has the opportunity to be part of the solution for our State’s serious water problems. If we can supplement our own water supply with desalinated seawater, we might have the opportunity of supplying desalinated water to our region, and beyond.
With an existing ocean intake and outfall, plenty of electricity coming into the PG&E switchyard, and a connection to the state water system nearly within the city limits, could Morro Bay become a net supplier of desalinated water?
Perhaps a future use of a small part of the Morro Bay Power Plant property as a regional desalinization facility, an activity that might not only help with our local, regional and state water supply problems, but be financially profitable for Morro Bay as well.
What do you think about our water situation? What are your ideas? Comment on this column at: www.facebook.com/cityofmorrobay or send me an email with your ideas or questions to: .

David Buckingham is city manager in Morro Bay. Send reader comments to: . A view from Harbor Street is a regular feature of The Bay News.