Commentary: Newport Beach development overlooks lack of water supply
The City Council is in the process of creating the Newport Beach Urban Water Management plan, which is a review of our water resources and what strategies we will use to ensure that we have enough water to supply needs in the future. More importantly, the Urban Water Management plan is also the legal tool that allows the city to approve new growth by certifying that adequate water supplies exist for such developments, so inaccurate data about water supplies could potentially result in a water shortage for the city.
Although some continue to believe that climate change is a hoax, most climate scientists believe that it is real. I believe that it is very likely that water will become our most valuable resource in the future and that frequent drought is our new normal. If we define drought as inadequate water supplies for existing needs, we don’t even need climate change for a permanent drought. We can build ourselves into a state of permanent water deficiency and with surge of development recently, we are already well on our way to doing this.
The 4,069 new homes being proposed just this year in Newport Beach will use an estimated 558 million gallons of water per year. In an era in which we do not have enough water for existing residents, adding this degree of development appears to be the height of irresponsibility. So, let’s look at how the Urban Water Management Plan anticipates ensuring that there is enough water to go around.
We plan to increase the amount of water drawn from the groundwater basin by about 10%. However, the plan notes that we have been depleting the ground water by a huge amount in recent years. There is currently an overdraft of 342,000 acre feet in groundwater as of June 2014, the most recent report. Since that report was written, we have had another two years of drought drawing down the groundwater basin even more. For perspective, Newport Beach used 16,000 acre feet of water in 2015.
We plan to buy more imported water. Remember that those with senior water rights take absolute precedence over junior water rights, meaning that this may well become a much less-reliable source of water with prolonged drought.
- We plan to buy more reclaimed water. However, during drought, the amount of water available to reclaim diminishes, reducing this as a viable source of water as well.
All of these sources can be reasonably expected to be static or diminish in coming years. The apparent solution of the Urban Water Management Plan is that future development will be supported by the continued water conservation of current residents. That means that our city is perfectly willing to have every drop of water that I save be generously allocated to the 26-story condo tower being proposed in Newport Center or other major developments.
The city is also considering purchasing water from the Poseidon desalination plant, if it ever gets built. However, water obtained from desalination is extremely expensive and would result in water costs going up, effectively a new tax on existing residents to support future growth.
Our city needs to recognize that simply saying there will be enough water for new development is not the same thing as delivering that water. Projects approved for development cannot, once built, be denied water and if the city actually cannot deliver the water promised, we will all suffer for it.
Our City Council can stand with developers or they can stand with the residents, but on this issue, but they cannot stand with them both.
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SUSAN SKINNER lives in Newport Beach.