sunday october 10, 1999
So how much does it cost?
How much does it cost the city of San Diego to produce and deliver reclaimed water from its North City Water Reclamation 'Plant?
-It depends on whom you ask.
When The San Diego Union-Tribune asked for those figures, it received a chart showing a cost of $310 per acre-foot. Much less than the $434 per acre-foot the city pays for water from the Colorado River.
But when Steve Bilson, owner of a "gray water" recycling business called ReWater Systems, asked the same question, he received a similar chart with a cost of $712 per acre-foot.
The numbers differ because the chart given to the Union-Tribune subtracted the federal grants and incentives paid to the city from the cost of producing the reclaimed water. The formula given to Bilson doesn't factor in the grants and incentives.
But both those figures are misleading, because they are based on projected reclaimed-water use years from now - not on actual use today.
The real cost, based on actual use, is either $990 or $2,269 per acre-foot, depending on which of the city's formulas is used.
The $990 estimate uses the formula the city gave to the Union-Tribune, with grants and incentives subtracted from the cost of production. The $2,269 estimate uses the formula given to Bison, without the subtraction.
Paul Gagliardo, the water research and development manager who came up with the city's figures, didn't dispute the Union-Tribune's calculations.
As the city sells more reclaimed water, he said, the cost per acre-foot - about the amount two families of four consume in a year - will go down.
"Averaged over a 10-year period, the $310 per-acre-foot number we're showing will be valid " Gagliardo said.
Biison said tile city's figures are so flawed that "it's criminal."
"They've been lying to the City Council for years," he said. "They've been lying to themselves."
Kathryn Balint
the webmaster notes the people in the government only lie when their lips are moving.