SAN DIEGO–After more than a decade of advocacy by environmental groups including San Diego Coastkeeper, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the San Diego Regional Water Quality Board voted to require the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant to reduce pollution discharged in the ocean by recycling a portion of San Diego’s wastewater into drinking water.
The permit approval incorporates the Pure Water milestones and deadlines agreed upon between the City of San Diego and environmental groups; San Diego Coastkeeper, Surfrider San Diego, Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation and San Diego Audubon.
“This week marked a momentous shift toward smarter thinking about water in San Diego. This approval bolsters our ocean-powered economy with a more fishable, swimmable coastline and creates a more sustainable San Diego,” says Matt O’Malley, executive director of San Diego Coastkeeper.
For more than a quarter century, the Point Loma Water Treatment Plant has been permitted to discharge up to 240 million gallons per day of partially treated sewage—into the Pacific Oceanside because the plant’s cliff-side location made a technology upgrade highly expensive.
The city’s plant is the only plant remaining on the west coast that is allowed to discharge with these lower standards of treatment. The environmental groups signed a cooperative agreement with the city and successfully advocated for unanimous city council approval of Pure Water, a wastewater-recycling project, to earn regulatory approval for the plant to continue operations. By recycling a portion of San Diego’s wastewater into drinking water, Pure Water will substantially lower the amount of treated sewage the plant dumps into the ocean.
Pure Water will produce at least 30 million gallons of pure drinking water a day by 2022 and 83 million gallons per day by 2035. The project’s wastewater recycling technology will cost less per unit and is more energy-efficient than sea-water desalination and lowers our region’s reliance on stressed water supplies like the Colorado River.
San Diego Coastkeeper says it is now working to hold San Diego accountable to securing the funding Pure Water needs to complete construction and reduce flows while producing a local water supply.
