Proposed Water Plant Raises Growth Issues in Marin County
Susan Sward
New York Times
10/23/2009
Nothing about the Marin Municipal Water District storage yard and the run-down wooden pier protruding into San Francisco Bay give any hint of what they are: the site of what may become one of the fiercest water battles in Northern California in decades.
It is, on the surface, a set piece: an emotional struggle over a large planned water project facing strong environmental opposition. But at a more basic level, it is a contest over the ever-volatile issue of growth in Marin County.
The district is proposing to use both the yard and the Marin Rod & Gun Club pier as locations for a desalination plant that would suck up saltwater and initially could produce about five million gallons of water a day for its 190,000 customers, an increase of 6 percent in the district’s supply.
While opposition to the plant is heavily based on concerns about its harm to marine life and how much energy it would use, those issues mask a more fundamental question. Will Marin County, whose bays, farmland and redwood-dotted mountain slopes make it one of the most gorgeous corners of California, once again balk at a decision that it believes will stimulate growth?
In recent decades that aversion to growth has been a key force in defeating several measures in the county. In the 1960s the Marin Municipal Water District said no to buying water from the State Water Project. In 1962 the county spurned the opportunity to be part of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system. And two more times — in 1970 and 1991 — voters defeated supply development measures sponsored by the water district, which encompasses 147 square miles of land in southern and central Marin County.
“Marin has always wanted to limit growth, and certainly water has been one way to do that,” said Phyllis Faber, a biologist who has been a leader in land preservation fights in the county. “The beauty of this place is outstanding. It’s almost a European culture where people go hiking and biking on weekends, and people want to preserve that.”
Today, the county is richer, whiter, older and slower-growing than most of the rest of the region.
In more arid parts of the world like the Middle East, desalination, a variety of techniques that remove salt from water, has been an accepted means of producing potable water for decades. More than 100 such plants exist, and recently the first large-scale desalination plant on the West Coast, proposed on a site north of San Diego, cleared a major hurdle.
At the same time, four other Bay Area water agencies are conducting joint tests to find an appropriate site for another plant.
But if desalination comes to Marin County, it will involve a battle.
Though the Marin Municipal Water District only recently approved the plant’s environmental impact report, and the facility still needs several agencies’ approval, an environmental group has already filed a lawsuit to block the plant.
Frank Egger, board president of North Coast Rivers Alliance, which is the lawsuit’s lead plaintiff, said that if people “properly manage water resources, there is no need for a desalination plant in Northern California.”
“The bay is in decline,”Mr. Egger said, “and it can’t afford this amount of water being extracted” without further hurting the fisheries.
Cliff Waldeck, a desalination supporter who is the former chairman of the Bay Area’s regional water board, said: “When I talk to people in the water supply world, they all say Marin is in deep trouble. The county now depends on a quarter of its water from the Russian River, and Sonoma County, which sells us the water, is growing and will soon need that water, especially as decisions favoring fish habitat further restrict available supplies.”
The water district maintains that its water supply — drawn mainly from seven reservoirs on the county’s wet, western flank — does not meet water needs, and that without new supplies by 2030 it will be short water for about 21,000 households. Conservation programs have cut district residents’ use by 15 percent in the last two decades, and the average Marin household uses just 283 gallons a day, which is about three-quarters of the average household use in the Bay Area.
