Proposal: Clean, then sell, Salton Sea water By RUDY YNIGUEZ, Staff Writer
Friday, January 23, 2004 3:45 PM PST
COACHELLA The Salton Sea Authority board of directors heard a $2 billion restoration proposal that includes the building of dredge-filled dikes and the desalination of Salton Sea water that would be sold to ultimately finance the project.
The pitch was made by David G. Argo, Irvine-based Black & Veatch senior vice president and engineer, at the authority's Thursday meeting.
Argo estimated the project includes capital costs of $2 billion and the potential desalination of 400,000 acre-feet yearly at a cost of $561 per acre-foot to produce. He said the water could be transported to the Colorado River Aqueduct, owned by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
A second scenario would have the water moved into the Imperial Irrigation District's East Highline Canal or the Coachella Valley Water District's Coachella Canal. Under this proposal the capital costs are estimated at $1.7 billion, with the same amount of water costing $432 per acre-foot to produce.
Argo argued it costs somewhat more to desalinate ocean water than what some agencies claim. He said an acre-foot of desalinated ocean water would likely cost from $1,200 to $2,000.
"For ocean water desal, they talk about $800. I don't believe them," he said. Argo said an assumption is electricity would be available at 4 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Argo also said because the Salton Sea will lose water under the Quantification Settlement Agreement, the Black & Veatch proposal could be integrated into the QSA.
When asked if he'd been pitching the project to state officials and others, Argo said, "I haven't seen it get any political traction yet, to be honest."
When asked if there is sufficient capacity in the Coachella Canal to transport 400,000 acre-feet yearly to the CRA, Argo said there are several ways to deal with the problem, including a parallel canal, a pipe within the canal and a split canal.
Argo said unlike other proposals he would not refer to the dikes as any kind of dam, and if a seismic event were to occur, they would simply reseal the breach. He said water would escape into an impoundment area but would only result in a slightly lower sea, depending on the number of segments into which the sea would be divided. Argo said the dikes should be looked at as being similar to levees, which require regular maintenance.
SSA Executive Director Tom Kirk added state officials are not interested in dikes built from dredged material. He said the state is only interested in barriers built from rocks.
No action was taken on the issue.
In other business, the authority:
· voted to continue its on-water fish recovery project for at least 30 days until new funding sources for the program can be found, as well as potentially additional duties for the contractor in order to keep the project viable; and,
· discussed the inaugural meeting of the state Resources Agency's Salton Sea Ecosystem Restoration Advisory Committee. The committee met in Sacramento on Tuesday. The committee has 27 members and an unknown number of staff members. The number of staff members and what are their duties worries some on the authority board.
Imperial County District 5 Supervisor Gary Wyatt said the committee meeting went as well as could be expected. He said he emphasized that the committee could not take a back seat to the committee staff. He also said the committee was surprised to hear its staff was developing a request for engineering qualifications for a programmatic environmental impact report; an RFQ the committee knew nothing about.
Wyatt said the committee staff is being paid from $20 million in Proposition 50 funds, which set aside money for QSA mitigation.
IID Division 1 Director Andy Horne said his impression from the meeting was that locals should "butt out."
"I think we have our work cut out for us," Horne said.
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