09d

• Board Meeting Date: 3/18/2008
• Description: CWCB Director's Report
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

If it succeeded, the proposal would give water agencies from across the acid West a way to tap into the
Pacific Ocean without having to shoulder the impractical costs of directly connecting pipes to the ocean.
Landa's group would guarantee the water supply to the yet-to-be-identified urban agency, while building
and operating the desalination plant, according to a 13-page presentation the developer prepared in March
2007.
Water transfers and exchanges are common techniques used by water managers across the West, where
the rights to water sources can be traded and sold like commodities. The San Diego County Water
Authority used a transfer in the 2003 Quantification Settlement Agreement. The authority paid farmers in
the Imperial Irrigation District to take less water than they were entitled to from the Colorado River,
allowing the authority to use the water instead.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority, which provides water to 2 million Las Vegas residents, is
interested in the concept of exchanging desalinated water for a larger claim to the Colorado River,
spokesman J.C. Davis said. The authority's general manager has signaled an interest in pursuing
desalination projects in California or Mexico.
Such a plan would not necessarily make sense for the Nevada agency, Davis said. The authority depends
on Lake Mead and the Colorado River for 90 percent of its water, and Lake Mead's levels have been
dropping.
Scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography recently projected the reservoir's water levels have a 50-
50 chance of being too low to draw water out by 2021.
If a project such as Nevagua were successful, Davis said the authority would have "succeeded in putting
more eggs in the Colorado River basket. Given a choice, you're trying to get your eggs out of that basket,
because it's shrinking."
Mexico's share of the Colorado River has been a controversial subject with the United States for decades.
The United States and Mexico signed a treaty in 1944 that guaranteed Mexico L~ million acre feet of
water from the Colorado each year. (An acre foot is about 326,000 gallons, enough to supply two families
for a year.)
But as the United States increased its dependence on the Colorado, the water that flowed into Mexico
became saltier and seriously declined in quality. The United States eventually agreed in the early 1970s to
build a desalination plant in Yuma to improve water quality. The treaty and subsequent negotiations have
given Mexico a valuable trading chip as the West faces its predicted dry future.
Beyond financing, the project would face numerous hurdles that Landa has highlighted in the
presentation: The governments of Mexico and the United States would need to agree to reduce deliveries
to Mexico. Landa would have to push the project through the International Boundary and Water
Commission, a State Department agency that he has fought with over the Bajagua proposal.
The San Marcos-based Bajagua Project calls for building a treatment plant in Mexico to handle 59 million
gallons of sewage daily, boosting Tijuana's treatment capacity by 34 million gallons a day while
providing a source of reclaimed water. The project would boost the levels of waste pulled out of sewage
currently treated in the United States at a San Ysidro plant, aiming to improve the ocean's water quality
near the U.S.-Mexico border. Each time it rains, sewage-laden runoff streams down Tijuana's hillsides
into the Pacific Ocean.
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