Environment Report: Is There Enough Sewage to Go ‘Round in San Diego?

Every month, a group meets to debate what should be done with our toilet water. Right, now they’re arguing about the fact that there might not be enough for everybody to reuse. 

Three years ago, I wrote about how the city of San Diego was at war with a bloc of Eastern County cities over the region’s wastewater supply. Both wanted to treat it and supply it to residents as drinking water. But their systems are intertwined, and when East County rolled off to do their own thing, it left costs to support the region’s wastewater system on the backs of other cities.  

But as Diegans conserve and need to flush their toilets less often, there’s potentially not enough wastewater for everyone to build their own recycling projects cost-effectively.  

Fast forward to October when San Diego City Council OK’d a two-year 30 percent water and wastewater increase under threat of defaulting on its debts or laying off hundreds of workers. The City Council was desperate for rate relief. The city’s Public Utilities Department heads said they overturned every stone looking for savings.  

Not necessarily, argues Kyle Swanson, general manager of the Padre Dam Municipal Water District. Swanson is part of the East County bloc’s wastewater-to-drinking water project. That project will provide up to 30 percent of Padre Dam, the city of El Cajon, Helix Water District and unincorporated San Diego county’s drinking water needs when it’s done in late 2026. If San Diego made a deal with East County, it could potentially save even more money.  

“We don’t need to overbuild for the region,” Swanson told me.  

Quick recap: San Diego’s Pure Water project has two phases. Phase 1 – and all of its lovely construction along Friars Road – cost about $1.5 billion will be finished soon. Phase 2 – which is bigger and provides more water – would cost about $4 billion and is now under the microscope.  

San Diegans are conserving more water than ever before. The city now thinks Pure Water will provide 50 percent of its drinking water needs instead of 30 percent, the estimate from 2012. So, how big should we build Phase 2? Environmentalists are peeved this is in question and say there’s no room for excuses: Recycle all the wastewater the city can, they say.  

Swanson is saying, we’ll be recycling and producing 11.5 million gallons of water per day soon (an approximately $1 billion project). Count that toward your goal, San Diego, and build a smaller, cheaper project.  

Seems like a slam dunk. San Diego builds a smaller project and gets to celebrate saving residents money, right? Unclear. Swanson said his conversations with the city have been loose discussions and informal conversations over the last few years.  

“Right now, we’re saying we want a seat at the table,” Swanson said.  

San Diego City Council President Joe LaCava asked the city’s Public Utilities Director, Juan Guerreiro, for an update on progress with East County discussions during the October water rate vote.  

Guerreiro said the department’s doing a new analysis on how big Phase 2 should be and East County is included in that.  

“There’s a lot of different variables and changing conditions,” Guerreiro said. “It has an impact to wastewater flows on our part of the system.”  

We’ll be monitoring the negotiations. When I last wrote about this in 2022, in a culmination of mud-slinging between the city and East County, East County voted to use eminent domain against San Diego over a wastewater pump they needed for their project. The two worked out a deal in the end. But there’s a history of bad blood there. 

It seems storm clouds are once again gathering over San Diego’s sewers, not just between East County and San Diego but the whole region against Swanson’s agency.  

The two blocs are fighting over voting power at that same toilet water council – formally known as the Metro Wastewater JPA. Padre Dam via Swanson is the lone opposition to a proposed change in the voting structure from a one vote per city rule and everything must pass unanimously to a two-thirds vote.  

“Requiring unanimity is not reflective of a democratic process in today’s context and gives any single agency veto power over regional decisions regardless of the broader consensus,” reads a Nov. 6 letter from Guerreiro and Jerry Jones, the chair of the Metro Wastewater JPA.  

Swanson disagrees.  

“This… gives the city way too much discretion to implement substantial changes … without requiring the agreement of Padre Dam,” he wrote in a Sept. 24 letter to the Metro Wastewater JPA. 

Why does this matter? The toilet water council is fighting over who will be saddled with supporting the cost of the region’s aging wastewater system. That’s truly the point of the JPA – all 13 cities’ toilets flush to the regional wastewater system, ultimately controlled by the city of San Diego, which dumps the final product in the Pacific Ocean via Point Loma.  

Jerry Jones, the chair of the Metro Wastewater JPA and a representative from the city of Lemon Grove, is pretty ticked off at Padre Dam. When I told him they want a seat at the table on San Diego’s Phase 2, Jones said, they already do via the Metro Wastewater JPA.  

“They have not been transparent with us on the engineering of their project, on its financing and finance agreements,” Jones said. “With San Diego’s Pure Water project, we have a seat at the table and we know everything that’s going on. Padre Dam isn’t sharing any of that with us.” 

How this all shakes out in terms we all really want to know, does any of this save me money on my bill, is anyone’s guess at this point. Let me know if you’ve seen that math.  

In Other News 

• In other huge water news, Tuesday marks the deadline for seven U.S. states that rely on the Colorado River to come to an agreement on using less. Almost every news outlet across the West is reporting that there’s no deal. (CalMatters) 
• Annie Snider at Politico wrote this great piece about how and why the Colorado River is the only water war the Trump Administration hasn’t blown up — yet.  
• The community of Alpine waited 30 years to secure a community park. The future of that 25-acre park is in flux after a San Diego County judge ruled plans for the project failed to abide by California’s environmental laws. (Union-Tribune) 
• Oceanside City Council decided to cut proposed water and sewer rates in half even though the city’s staff warned it cuts budgets “to the bone.” (Union-Tribune) 
• Layoffs at SDG&E sparked heated backlash from the company’s biggest union boss. “Over my dead body” would there be cuts to represented workers, Nate Fairman of Local 465 said. (Voice of San Diego)  
• Remember when the county inadvertently got a community garden shut down in the Tijuana River when it posted air pollution warning signs nearby? The county secured new management for that garden to keep it open, reports our Jim Hinch.  
• National City’s leadership rejected a controversial rail transfer station proposal that would have made the city a major hub for biofuels shipping. (Voice of San Diego) 
• Under a new mayor, the sewage-plagued beach town of Imperial Beach wants to grow beyond its grim reputation. (Voice of San Diego) 
• Oyster castles. Manmade concrete structures the Port of San Diego built off Chula Vista’s shoreline are supposed to prevent erosion and provide new homes for marine life. They appear to be working, reports KPBS’ Tammy Murga. 

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