Council to Consider Buying Water from Desalination Plant

The Carlsbad City Council on Tuesday will consider a 30-year contract to buy water from the under-construction Poseidon Resources Corp. desalination plant.

The contract would be with the San Diego County Water Authority, and backers of the deal say it would guarantee a local source of drinking water to supplement Carlsbad's only other source, imported Colorado River water
purchased from the Water Authority.

The pending agreement would inflate the average Carlsbad homeowner's water bill by about $7 per month.

The Water Authority board is set to vote on the water purchase agreement
with Poseidon at a meeting Thursday. When completed, the desalination plant,
which is being built near the Encina power station in Carlsbad, is expected to
produce about 50 million gallons of fresh water per day, enough to supply about 7 percent of the region.

Also on the agenda is a public hearing for a $29.4 million expansion of the city's recycled water system in the southeastern reaches of Carlsbad.

Recycled water is mostly used for irrigation. The expansion would be in
the southeastern portion of the city.

- City News Service