Even with unprecedented unanimity among meteorological experts that a powerful El Niño looms ahead, not one Santa Barbara city councilmember felt they could risk another year without rain. Backed into an ominously parched corner by the most intense drought in California’s recorded history — and with new deliveries from Lake Cachuma and the State Water Project effectively shut off — the council voted to reactivate the desalination plant it built 25 years ago as an emergency response to the last big drought. No sooner was that plant built than the South Coast was pummeled by the “Miracle March Rains,” and Santa Barbara’s desal facility has sat idle since.
That history was very much on the councilmembers’ minds as they approved spending nearly $4 million for a rebuilt and reengineered desalination plant that will eventually cost city ratepayers $53 million. “If Mother Nature wanted to tell us what her plans were, we’d all sleep easier,” lamented Mayor Helene Schneider, “but she doesn’t.” Water czar Joshua Haggmark likewise had little interest in betting whether the predicted El Niño would deliver relief needed to replenish South Coast reservoirs. In the six El Niños in recorded history, Haggmark told the council, only three brought above-average rainfall. “It’s still a significant unknown,” he said. “We have exhausted all other options.”
The bad news is that the proposed desalination plant the councilmembers are now looking at will cost about $14 million more than they thought it would just a few months ago. And that’s about $35 million more than it was projected to cost two years before that. (The plant originally cost $34 million to build.) The good news is that the State of California is offering to finance the whole enterprise with bargain basement interest rates of only 1.6 percent. Thanks to the low-interest loans, the annualized cost of building and operating the plant for five years is $7.3 million.