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After that, the San Diegos took a collective vow: Never again.
In 1996, the San Diego County Water Authority struck a key agreement to purchase water from farmers in the Imperial Valley in the southeast corner of California, heralding the beginning of the area’s water divorce from Los Angeles.
Over the next two decades, the agency undertook a number of important and expensive infrastructure projects aimed at creating more diverse water sources, more places to hold it, and more ways to transport it throughout the county.
In 2010, the authority concreted the channels in the Imperial Valley to prevent water from seeping into the ground, and struck a deal to take the water saved through the process—about 26 billion gallons a year. The authority completed the San Vicente Dam upgrade in 2014, adding more capacity to the San Vicente Reservoir in the largest water storage increase in the county’s history.
Then there was the long, full pregnancy sea water treatment plant, the largest in the United States and now the envy of desperation communities on the beach, despite environmental concerns. Since 2015, millions of gallons of seawater have flowed into the $1 billion facility in Carlsbad every day, where it is filtered into something that tastes like it came from an Evian bottle, not the Pacific Ocean.
County-wide, restrictions and conservation measures have resulted in per capita water use falling by half over the past three decades.
The next big task? Expand the so-called territory pure water programs, were once given the mocking nickname “toilet for the faucet” because they purify gray water to make it drinkable. Today, such programs are seen as some of the most promising avenues not just in San Diego but throughout the state. (system in neighboring Orange County often referred to as the gold standard.)
Toni Atkins, vice president of the California Senate and formerly on the San Diego City Council, said San Diego now provides a roadmap for others struggling for water. And he is proud of it.
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