What is the Cost?

Reusable Water Not Cheaper: Report
http://bit.ly/KbuW9C


Committee Seeks Consultant to Help Evaluate Desal Projects
http://bit.ly/KfCIQ1


Both of these articles, the first dealing with San Diego Counties efforts to implement potable reuse as part of its overall water supply scheme, and the second involving the continuing saga of trying to bring more desalination to the Monterey Peninsula to alleviate the water supply issues there, involve making sure that the cost of the water, whatever the source, stays as low as possible. While on the surface this seems a worthy goal, the process by which this evaluation on cost takes place is fundamentally flawed. The cost comparisons, whether they intend to or not, inevitably use as their baseline the historical cost of water. But the historical costs were heavily subsidized by taxes and were from unsustainable systems of acquiring and delivering the water, which is why so much of the State of California is now in the situation it finds itself, faced with dwindling supplies and escalating costs. Cost comparisons for future water supplies need to consider the cost of increasingly limited supplies on the economy, and need to reflect the true, all encompassing cost of supplying the water. Essentially, we need to be asking ourselves not what will some project cost compared to what we’ve been paying for water, but what will it cost us, as individuals and as a community, if we run out of water.