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Statement of Harold Ball, Director, San Diego County Water Authority o ....... CD ...'" For the 1999 Review Water Quality Standards for Salinity Colorado River System Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum August 23, 1999 D The Authority is a water wholesaler for San Diego County. We purchase supplies from the Metropolitan Water District and provide water for 23 member agencies and their2.7 million individual water customers. Our water users and water agencies are a diverse group, ranging from big urban users such as the city of San Diego, to small, agricultural irrigation districts. Most of our water use is for M&I purposes, but although it doesn't use a lot of water, agriculture in San Diego County is a $1 billion- a-year business. The one thing we all have in common is the need for a reliable, high-quality water supply. D In the recent past, the Authority has received about 85 percent of its water supply from the Colorado River. San Diego County has relatively few local water resources, mostly from runoff into surface reservoirs, and these local supplies are not reliable. During 1991, near the end of a six-year drought, our local supply provided only 5 percent of our total water needs. We are working to diversify our water supply portfolio with transfers of Colorado River water from the Imperial Valley. Because of our heavy reliance on the Colorado River, water quality issues associated with the river translate almost directly to water quality impacts felt by our region. And salinity has been one of our biggest water quality issues. D The impacts of excessive salinity in San Diego County include damages to water- using appliances at every level, from homes and small businesses to industrial processes used by manufacturing firms. High-value farm products experience reduced yields or must increase water use by leaching. Additional costs are incurred by businesses that must have high-quality water, such as our growing biotechnology sector. And additional costs are incurred to produce marketable recycled water, which is an important element of the Authority's future water supply. A recent study by the Metropolitan Water District and the U.S. Bureau of Recl~mation showed that a 100 mg/L decrease in the TDS of Metropolitan's water supply would result in $95 million of avoided costs over entire Metropolitan service area. For the San Diego region, the avoided damages of such a salinity decrease would be $28 million per year. D Let me give you one example of how salinity affects the cost of our local resources development. The city of San Diego recently constructed a 30-mgd water reclamation plant to meet a portion of its future needs. To meet the water quality need:, of its customers, the city has to further construct a 7.6 mgd demineralization component to the plant, which will reduce TDS of the product water from 1,200 ppm to less than 1,000 ppm. The additional cost of the demineralization component will be more than $10 million in capital and more than $600,000 per year for operations. The excess salinity that requires demineralization comes from a variety of local 30