Marin Voice: Desalination is not the solution

THE Marin Municipal Water District board's approval of the environmental report clears the way for construction of a 15 million gallon-per-day desalination plant just north of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, close to the Marin Rod and Gun Club.

[Kyle Keilman]

Thanks for a refreshing drink of honestsy, Ford Greene and Larry Bragman!

You two are my favorite Marin County officials, and I only wish someone with your vision represented me in San Rafael. Sadly, this is just not the case.

(While I commend the IJ for printing this article, my only regret is that the authors did not point our how tragic it is to have our monopoly daily newspaper solidly on the wrong side of this issue.)

Taking on absurd ABAG mandated growth is a top priority for Marin's future, and is as you wisely note of questionable legality. You correctly note the brutal financial costs to MMWD ratepayers of this boondoggle.

Also pointing out the horror of drinking up our own wastes is crucial, and often just ignored by desal proponents in the face of understandable disgust at the very idea.

Again, Bravo gents! Well said!

[Kyle Keilman]

P.S. And I do know how to spell 'honesty', its just that the computer screen is a bit blurry before 7AM. Thanks yet again!

[KBS-972]

Excellent piece, thank you IJ for printing these words of wisdom.
In a related issue to the MMWD, I just saw on channel 2 news that the City of Santa Rosa has filed a lawsuit against the Sonoma County Water Agency because they are proposing to postpone the Sonoma Water Project that includes the Dry Creek bypass pipeline project to pump more water out of Lake Sonoma. The SCWA claims that the costs are too much for infrastructure improvements and the series of 5 studies required by the feds to protect the fisheries.
This important to Marin because half of Marin county (the most populated half) is served by the Marin Municipal Water District. The MMWD recieves now about 19 percent of their water from the SCWA after recent cut backs from 25 percent. So right now all of Marin County uses about 8 percent water from the SCWA. This will have a huge impact on Novato and the other cities in Sonoma County who were counting on the Sonoma water project to continue their rampant overbuilding up there, that is why Santa Rosa is suing. It also may affect ABAG's plan to add more transportation apartments in central Marin which is served by the MMWD.

[KBS-972]

Excuse me, I should have said all of Marin except Novato (which gets it's water from Sonoma) uses about 9.5 percent water from the SCWA, not 8 percent.

[BayGal]

The Marin Water Board doesn't get it. Their decision isn't about drought, as they claim. It's about growth and industrialization. The Board is incapable of, and therefore rejects, creating a plan from a number of projects that work together such as those described. They have allowed themselves to be convinced that bigger & shinier is better rather than being capable of actually managing the 'new' way of handling our water needs through un-sexy things like catchments, gray water, etc. This is working in other locations in the country. Why the illogical need for a growth support, unless money is crossing palms or through sheer laziness. Marin is not Orange County but the Board, either through intention or mediocrity, is in the process of ruining it.

[John Shurtz - Novato]

I totally agree with this article!!!
The MMWD decision is unacceptable!

[Science Guy]

You can fit in a thimble the knowledge that lawyers Greene and Bragman have about water treatment and environmental science. But that doesn't stop them from fearmongering and their behavior perfectly fits the definition of demagogue: a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular passions and prejudices.

None of their claims about water quality or environmental harm is supported by scientific studies. Citizens who have concerns in these areas should do their fact finding firsthand by reading the reports, test results, and studies.

It is not too hard to see that Greene and Bragman's real agenda is to use water supply (or the lack thereof) to throttle growth. And they will make up lies and distortions to scare people.

Since the MMWD Board voted to pursue desalination, the water supply situation in Sonoma County has become more serious. It hasn't been covered in the Marin IJ, but you can read about it in the Aug 25, 2009 Press Democrat. The Sonoma County Water Agency has decided to drop the EIR and plans to expand the supply from the Russian River. MMWD receives 25% of its supply from this source as "surplus" water. That surplus is likely to disappear and MMWD is at the end of the pipeline.

If you follow the rhetoric of the lawyer-lemmings whose real agenda is to try to stop growth, the risk of running out of water is very real when (not if) the next drought comes. Marin's rate of growth is quite small and well-managed and desalination won't change that. It is foolish and risky to use water to control growth.

[Water Watcher]

Desalination is not about growth. It's about security of water supplies when there is a major drought.

In 1977, MMWD projected they would run out of water in June, without additional water supply. They had to twist many arms, but were able to get relief from Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, who sold water to MMWD to avoid a disaster. That water is not available now, nor is a pipeline across the bridge.

As Science Guy says, Greene and Bragman need to do their homework on the quality of water produced and impacts on the Bay from desalination. None of their wild claims are anywhere remotely near the truth. Just read all of the voluminous data from MMWD's studies and those from other desalination facilities.

[David Behar - MMWD Board]

Science guy hit the nail on the head. Greene and Bragman are wrong on the facts, ignore science, and are attempting the worst kind of demagoguery to make their arguments. The good news is that these tactics won't work.
There certainly ARE legitimate arguments against desal (and I've made them), just like there may be legitimate arguments against Obama's most progressive health care ideas. I just wish these two elected officials could focus responsibly on those arguments rather than adopting the tactics of Sarah Palin and her allies in fighting health care reform: misinformation, playing to fear, and opposition without solution. That's a parallel we could do without here in Marin.

[BayGal]

>>It is foolish and risky to use water to control growth.<<

What else does it depend on? It's always been used to promote growth, including promising more than can be delivered statewide. Now Marin is facing the fact of limits but our fearless leaders want to chug more, from the Bay. How about developing stronger controls for less waste?

There's another kind of growth besides new populations and housing; ie, growth in use by the current population. At the recent water forum in Sacto, Phil Isenberg noted that demand and per capita use is growing around the state. How about MMWD working on the demand side?? How about fixing the broken infrastructure and utilizing renewables like gray water, now that the state quickly approved using it?(At least the state gets the problem and understands a renewable opportunity, but not MMWD).

Cities around the state are starting to require individual metering in apartments. Why is MMWD not lobbying the Supervisors on this, given the large number of condos in the county? It would fall under the County's police powers, ie, regulating under health and safety obligations, which a water shortage certainly falls under. If we're in a crisis (which we are, Marin not yet having seceded from the reality of Calif's drought) MMWD should be heavily pushing for this. But it's nowhere....while water continues to be wasted by users with not a care or responsibility to cut back. Condos are just one example of a failure to develop a water plan that uses all instruments, not just a build-it-big approach.

[Water Watcher]

Baygal - per capita use has dropped significantly in MMWD's territory - MMWD's numbers show that it's 25% lower now than it was in the 1980's. They report that overall use has dropped, too - which is almost unheard of among water districts. So, MMWD has not been a slacker on either front.

Gray water is fine, but it's not cheap to install the systems to use it. And most people don't want to maintain the filters and distribution systems that are necessary to have graywater make any dent in water use. If it were so easy to use, why aren't there more people using it? The same goes for rainwater catchment systems.

And condo owners can certainly put in their own meters - there's nothing preventing them from doing so. That might make some difference, but I would wager that condo residents already use much less water than the typical suburban homeowner. We'll have to ask MMWD to give us the figures.

[MMWD Ratepayer]

The MMWD Board and management need to come clean on just why they insist on building the desal facility.

Anyone who closely looks at the many MMWD documents and studies on water supply and consumption history will quickly see that MMWD's public statements do not match their own records.

The MMWD board and management have clearly demonstrated they are not to be trusted. For example, they recently approved up to a 15 MGD desal facility, yet have never released cost figures for it. The $400 million over 30 years is just for a 5 MGD facility. A 10 MGD facility will cost close to twice that. How much will a 15 MGD facility cost? Probably around $1 billion! How can MMWD approve it (as they recently did) without releasing credible cost figures?

MMWD ratepayers deserve better than the Rovesque propaganda campaign and false pretenses MMWD is using to justify their desal project.

Marin does not need desal, just better water management practices.

[sink]

So happy to see these words. Thank you to all involved, both the authors and publishers of this well grounded view. I have renewed faith that not all involved are as morally depraved as it was looking like.

[Ford Greene]

Science Guy and Rich “Toilet-to-Tap” Behar are a little sensitive, don’t you think?

You know how I can tell? They both started calling me and Larry names.

Demagogue? Sarah Palin?

Ad hominem arguments constitute one of the most common errors in logic: Trying to win an argument by calling your opponent names (“Jane, you ignorant etcetera ....”) only shows the paucity of your own reasoning.(Of course, it happens all the time in real world politics.)

Let me get this right. I am the guy who in 2003 stood up and on the side of my building in front of thousands of people every day month after month criticized George Bush by giving perspective on him as a religious fanatic, liar, megalomaniac and buffoon who didn’t give a damn about the values of freedom and self respect which make this country great. In letters to the editor that were published in the I.J. people called me a traitor and suggested I didn’t deserve habeas corpus. With guts and speaking truth to everybody, my efforts did not flag.

I have established some of who I am. Let’s take a look at you, Rich “Toilet-to-Tap” Behar.

You want to feed me fecal water and tell me that science says it is safe. You want me to agree to do this when I have lakes full of gorgeous water I can drink from. You want to support 14,000 new water hook ups. You want to place three 2,000,000 gallon tanks on open space hillsides.

And you want me to go for all of this without voting on it.

Without voting on it, right? Rich?

HOW ABOUT YOU AND ME HAVE A PUBLIC DEBATE REGARDING THESE MATTERS?

COME ON OUT IN PUBLIC AND LET’S HAVE IT OUT!

Sarah Palin didn’t give any voting right to wolves in Alaska, did she? Just made a big decision that screwed up all the wolves’ lives. Just like you, Rich. Except you want us to trust you so much that we take your word for it and swap rainwater for toilet-to-tap water.

If that was not what you want us to do, YOU WOULD MAKE SURE WE VOTED ON IT.

YOU WOULD HAVE RESPECTED THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO VOTE.

You haven’t made squat of an argument, Mr. Behar. Instead of name calling, why don’t you tell us each of the legitimate arguments you have made regarding desalination in Marin.

IN A PUBLIC DEBATE.

Now, Science Guy. How is the traffic out there today? Are you liking it so much you want more of it? Right here in Marin?

You are sort of right when you say that I want to “throttle growth” but a bit dramatic. I want to stop, assess what we have and assess where we want to go and how we want to get there. And yes, I think it is a very good idea to stop development. Not just in Marin, but everywhere. We need to reduce, if we want to survive.

Don’t you recognize that it is “growth” that has been so out of control that it has brought us climate change and global warming? That it has wiped out the salmon and which is poisoning this beautiful world? And you tell me I am to trust the way you apply “science”?

I don’t think so. It is that type of application of science that has brought us to this point.

Water hook ups are very good tools for controlling growth. And we do need to control our growth. It has been effective in Bolinas for a long time.

[AOS III]

Right on Ford Greene, well said. Thank you.

[Ford Greene]

opps ... I mean David "Toilet-to-Tap" Behar.

[AOS III]

Water Watcher wrote:

Desalination is not about growth. their wild claims are anywhere remotely near the truth.

And the Santa Rosa city council woman said today in the Press Democrat, "we are suing the SCWA for more water, this is not about development at all, it's about future growth !" Now I understand.

[Jim]

Has anyone talked to Hal Brown yet? He has an abundance of water running through Ross Valley. He even held an illegal election to raise taxes to deal with the abundance to create some type of water diversion system.

Just maybe we can divert this water back to the lakes.

Let's talk to Hal.

Have a "Greene - Behar" debate.

Then let the people vote.

[Sophocles]

Jim - maybe we can solve all of our problems by building a dam where Ford Greene's office is, and save all that "excess" water that flows down Corte Madera Creek. Oh, wait - that could be a bit of a problem - there might be a few people in San Anselmo and Fairfax who might object to losing their houses under a large lake.

Where, precisely, do you propose to put this dam you keep talking about, to store all the water that Hal Brown has? There isn't anywhere to do so, even were the fisheries agencies to allow it to happen, which they won't (have you ever heard of steelhead?- they're endangered.) So, give it up, pal.

[Sophocles]

Interesting how Ford Greene doesn't address the criticisms about the fallacies of his non-scientific arguments against desalination. He just beats his breast about what a crusader he is.

If he's such a hotshot attorney, he should know that using a moratorium on water hookups to control growth is illegal. There's even a precedential case right in his own backyard that slapped MMWD down in the 1970's when they tried to do exactly that. If Greene is so worried about growth, he should use the right tool to control it - city and county general plans. And amazingly, as a City Councilman, he is the one who has the power to make those decisions. Is he using it?