Testing for desalination plant suspended

Testing for the future Camp Pendleton seawater desalination plant has been suspended.

The San Diego County Water Authority did not take a vote at the Sept. 27 SDCWA board meeting, but a presentation by CWA water resources department senior engineer Jeremy Crutchfield at the CWA’s Water Planning Committee that day said that the demand from the State Lands Commission for an Environmental Impact Report would require beyond what has been budgeted for the testing.

“We hit the pause button,” Crutchfield said.

The Camp Pendleton desalination project would be developed in 50 million gallons per day increments with a capacity of 50 to 150 million gallons per day. The conveyance capacity would range from 77 to 232 cubic feet per second. A capacity of 50 million gallons per day equates to 56,000 acre-feet annually while 150 million gallons per day would provide 168,000 annual acre-feet.

A feasibility study completed in 2009 identified two sites in the southwest corner of Camp Pendleton while also identifying new infrastructure needs, environmental and permitting requirements and project implementation issues associated with potential sites. One of the sites is in the Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity area, while the other is by the Southern Region Tertiary Treatment Plant.

The feasibility study also indicated that further detailed investigations and studies would be needed to confirm the feasibility of a large-scale desalination system. In March 2011 the CWA approved a contract for technical studies, and in July 2011, the CWA approved a consultant contract to conduct additional site evaluations.

The feasibility study considered both subsurface and open ocean intake systems, and the technical studies included configuration and facility requirements for the intake and discharge system. The intake and discharge system, including permitting, is expected to account for approximately 15 percent of the project’s total construction cost, which is estimated to be between $2.23 billion and $2.90 billion.

The technical studies included conceptual engineering and cost estimates for the intake and discharge facilities along with hydrogeological investigations of the alluvial aquifer system, studies of the near-shore coastal environment, geotechnical investigations focusing on foundation issues and environmental compliance documentation and site assessments.

The planning-level studies and field investigations were finalized in October 2013 and included the feasibility of subsurface and screened open ocean intake alternatives, brine discharge methods, treatment processes and plant configurations, power supply requirements, alternative conveyance alignments, integrating new supplies into the regional aqueduct system and impacts to base operations.

The results further validated the project’s overall feasibility including the viability of both screened open ocean and subsurface intakes and the practicality of a diffuser-type brine discharge system while also confirming that the water could be conveyed effectively through a 19-mile system of pipelines and pumping stations integrated into the CWA’s Second Aqueduct. No finds constituted an environmental situation which would constitute a fatal flaw for the intake and discharge system.

“The $5.4 million that has been spent to date has produced quality results,” Crutchfield said.

In March 2015, the CWA board approved a testing program to evaluate open ocean and subsurface discharge infrastructure while also accepting up to $1.4 million of California Department of Water Resources and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation grant funding. In September 2015, the CWA board approved a $4,050,000 contract with Michael Baker International to perform the design, permitting, construction, operation, testing and reporting tasks required for the intake testing program, and a separate September 2015 action approved a Memorandum of Understanding with Camp Pendleton to allow testing activities on the base. The MOU did not commit either party to advance the project beyond the test program stage.

The testing program location is independent of the actual site, allowing the CWA to minimize the pipeline cost for the test due to a closer distance to the water. The approximately footprint for the side-by-side testing is 10,000 square feet within the Del Mar Beach area of Camp Pendleton.

The CWA budgeted $1.72 million for the testing program, which is expected to take two years to complete. The intake program will utilize a test unit of 20 gallons per minute. The open ocean intake will use a one-millimeter wedge wire screen, which complies with the State Water Resources Control Board’s Ocean Plan Amendment requirement, and the subsurface intake will be horizontally directionally drilled underneath the sea floor. Continuous weekday operation for a year will include manned observation for 40 hours each week.

The testing will evaluate, optimize and demonstrate the efficiency of the necessary pre-treatment process for each intake system. The side-by-side testing will address the program goals of minimizing adverse environmental impacts to marine life, determining long-term variability in water quality from the intake locations to provide baseline data to optimize the treatment plant, determining and optimizing the treatment plant configuration to address seasonal water quality changes and impacts on intake water quality from storm or algae blooms and determining and evaluating the optimal pre-treatment systems for effective reverse osmosis performance including the capital and operating cost implications for a full-scale facility.

The work by Michael Baker International included the development of a permitting work plan which identified the approvals necessary for the intake testing program. The permits included base access and site approval from Camp Pendleton, a National Environmental Policy Act finding, permits from the Army Corps of Engineers and the Regional Water Quality Control Board, an incidental take permit and a consistency determination from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, a coastal development permit from the California Coastal Commission and a surface and submerged lands lease from the State Lands Commission.

“There were no fatal flaws in pursuing development of a full-scale project,” Crutchfield said. “What we didn’t anticipate was the level of scrutiny we were going to get from some of those entities.”

The land lease permit application was filed with the State Lands Commission in July 2016. The CWA filed a statutory exemption from California Environmental Quality Act review for the testing project, Aug. 5, 2016. State Lands Commission staff contested the CEQA exemption determination and requested that the CWA provide a Mitigated Negative Declaration. The CWA submitted a 214-page MND, along with supporting documentation, March 2. The documentation indicated that the intake testing program would have no significant impact on the environment.

“This really was a research-based testing study. This was not production,” Crutchfield said.

“We did not anticipate the challenges that we have had going through it,” Sandra Kerl, CWA deputy general manager, said.

State Lands Commission staff reviewed the draft MND and informed the CWA that a full Environmental Impact Report would be required. The State Lands Commission staff also informed the CWA that the estimated cost of the EIR would be an additional $625,000. That amount was not included in the Michael Baker International contract.

“Staff has determined to terminate the intake testing program,” Crutchfield said.

“I was appalled when I read the staff report,” Keith Lewinger said, who is one of Carlsbad’s representatives on the SDCWA board and was the general manager of the Fallbrook Public Utility District from 1999 to 2011.

Lewinger asked CWA staff to prepare a case study and evaluate options with state-level government officials.

Valley Center Municipal Water District general manager Gary Arant, who is the their representative on the CWA board, expressed displeasure at the state’s reaction to local agencies seeking to be self-sufficient.

“This goes beyond the money we would spend on an EIR,” he said. “I think we need to send them a message.”

The CWA board updated the master plan in March 2014, and the Camp Pendleton desalination plant was identified as a long-term water supply. Between 2017 and 2020 the CWA will determine the status of water supply conditions and water demand and will also determine the status of indirect potable reuse projects and the Rosarito desalination plant permitting process, which will enable an evaluation of when the Camp Pendleton desalination plant will be needed. If those enhanced local projects are built the CWA expects to meet the 2035 regional demand, although without those local projects a shortage of 91,000 acre-feet is anticipated.

The information about potential supply alternatives will allow the CWA board to make a decision in 2020 whether to proceed with the environmental phase of the Camp Pendleton desalination plant. The long-term plan schedules a 2030 decision to initiate permitting for the first 50 mgd phase and 2033 consideration of potential implementation. In the absence of litigation delays the Camp Pendleton facility would be producing water by 2035.

“This was really not considered to be a source of supply until about 2035, so there is no immediate issue,” Kerl said.

“It is a feasible thing in the future possibly,” Santa Fe Irrigation Board member Michael Hogan said, who is that district’s representative on the CWA board.

Kerl said that Camp Pendleton has no plans to terminate the base’s agreements with the CWA to bring the desalination plant to fruition.

“Camp Pendleton has been very supportive,” Kerl said. ‘The base still has their own needs and desires to have a sustainable source of supply.”