Forum on March 18th at 6:15pm at Live Oak Elementary School 1916 Capitola Rd.

Free and open to the public.

Santa Cruz Water Department and Soquel Creek Water District are planning to build a desalination plant, to serve Santa Cruz and Live Oak residents in dry years, and Soquel District customers in all other years. Soquel District wants to reduce pumping from the aquifer, which they report is in danger of seawater contamination from over-pumping.

It’s up to our community to decide the desalination issue. The sponsoring organizations want to get feedback from people who attend the forum.  Sarah Mansergh of Surfrider explains, “Turning sea water into fresh water through this energy intensive process is a significant new step for this community. It’s important that people are fully informed of the consequences.”  The organizers will poll people who attend on their opinions about the desalination plant as a core component of our local water policy.

The event will feature Bill Kocher, director of the Santa Cruz Water Department; Heather Cooley with the Pacific Institute and author of "Deslination: With a Grain of Salt"; Rick Longinotti of the Community Water Coalition talking about alternatives to desalination; and Debbie Cook, former mayor of Huntington Beach who served as one of two elected officials on the state’s Desalination Task Force,  and is currently board president of the Post-Carbon Institute.

Longinotti says, “It’s important for water customers in Soquel Creek Water District to know that in 2009 the mild restrictions on water use resulted in a 14% cutback in water use. That’s almost the amount of conservation needed every year to bring water consumption in line with the sustainable yield of the aquifer. Would Soquel residents rather incur the financial and environmental costs of the desalination plant, or conserve every year like they did last summer?”

The Santa Cruz water supply depends mainly on surface water sources. It plans to use the desalination plant for six months during dry years---averaging one out of six years. Longinotti states, “Most drought events are predicted to require curtailments of below 20%.  Do Santa Cruz residents want to incur the expense of a desalination plant? Or would they rather conserve a little every year?”