Water. Desalination + reuse
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/749211
28 In Site December 2016 Water. desalination + reuse Water supplies in Baja Norte and San Diego County are closely linked THE POSSIBILITIES • Desal project could eventually supply water to the US • Innovative water trading ideas are developing, including new defi nitions of "wet water" and "paper water" • "Paper water" equates to trading between water agencies on water supplies • Potential for leverage through smart approach to water deals THE CHALLENGES • Many permitting hurdles must be cleared, including at a Federal level, for cross-border initiatives Back in the 1930s, a treaty on water from the Colorado River and Rio Grande was signed between the Mexican and US authorities. The organisation involved was the International Boundary and Water Commission, a unique agency that continues to exist today, as a function of both the Mexican and US authorities. As part of the broader work that's going on around the Rosarito Beach project, Otay Water District, California, has been working to get approval to take water from the plant, steering a process through authorities on the US side of the border. "There has been a lot of water sampling and testing going on for almost a couple of years now in compliance with California and Federal regulations, and Otay Water District has applied for permission to have a pipeline cross the border. Anything that goes across the border, whether a gas pipeline, a power line, or whatever, requires presidential approval on the US side — a presidential permit; and Otay is quite advanced in planning for that," says Tonner. "The application for the presidential permit is in, and the source water quality monitoring necessary to support an application for consideration of a new water source is proceeding with the State of Bi-national fl avour California." One question is whether CEA, the State Water Commission of Baja California, will be the vendor of water to Otay, or if the supplies will be bought direct from Consolidated Water. "That's the million dollar question. On one hand, we'll just keep making the plant as big as CEA wants it to be, and they can sell it to whoever they want, assuming that they can get approval from whichever entities they need to on both sides of the border. Or they may want us to go directly to Otay," explains Tonner. "Whether it ends up that they negotiate with the State of Baja California Norte, or if something's worked out with some other government agencies at the Federal level on both sides, I don't know. Whether they end up dealing with us, we don't yet know." Water from the plant could be delivered across the border in one of two ways: in Mexico the two possibilities are known as "wet water" or "paper water". Wet water means physically delivering water, by means of a pipeline for example. Paper water means that a US agency somewhere further up the Colorado River would take a certain amount of water from the river, and that Tijuana would no longer draw that volume from the river on its side of the border, but instead take it from the desalination plant. "For every cubic metre a second that we deliver to Tijuana, they don't need to take it from the Colorado. To get a cubic metre a second to Tijuana they take more than that from the Colorado, because of the canal, evaporation, and leakage. So paper water represents a potential for leverage. We give them one, they may be able to haggle for two on the Colorado. That's never been done before, and can be a part of our project," says Tonner. San Diego and Tijuana are seen by some agencies, including development funding bodies, as a single economic area. "The potential to deliver water into both Southern California and Baja is really exciting, it builds on the community there, helps to foster and grow that, and there are a lot of people on both sides who believe in that," says Tonner. LOOK Rosarito desal plant will be located in US-Mexico border country, where economies and communities o en have shared interests The new desalination plant at Playas de Rosarito is adjacent to an existing power station The new mega-size desal facility will have capacity to supply water to Baja Norte, with supplies le over for cross-border trading into California, US