Wet dreams

Local environmentalists thought the plan dead, but an Alaskan entrepreneur is still winding his way through the state's permitting process, hoping one day to haul billions of gallons of water from two pristine Northern California rivers to parched-some say rather gluttonous-San Diego.

“You're talking about the guy who wants to move water down here in big bags?” was the response of the local Sierra Club's water-transfer expert, Fred Cagle. “The last I heard, it had pretty well been killed.”

Well, not so fast. Last Friday, the state Water Resources Control Board opened up a 60-day public comment period for the plans of Ric Davidge and his Anchorage-based company, Alaska Water Exports. And Davidge, according to folks who have crossed his path, is not one to give up easily.

As laid out in stacks of documents, Davidge proposes to divert about 15,000 acre-feet (roughly 5 billion gallons) of fresh water during winter months from the Albion and Gualala rivers in Mendocino and Sonoma counties into 50,000-cubic-meter polyfiber bags-the size of three football fields-and then tugboat the liquid booty to San Diego. A pipeline from the rivers' mouths would run offshore to a loading facility. A similar set-up to offload the water would be required here as well.

Water woes for San Diego are nothing new. Because the area generates only about 10 percent of its annual water needs, the remainder must be imported. The city now gets its water from the Colorado River to the east and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the north through a series of pipes and culverts.

Over the years, the city's Water Department has received numerous pitches on how to solve our water-shortage problems, from hauling water in single-hull tankers or icebergs down from Alaska to running an under-ocean pipeline to the Great Northwest, where there's more a dearth of sunshine than water.

But water bags from touristy and tranquil Mendocino? “It's definitely a touchy issue,” said Water Department spokesman Kurt Kidman. “While it would be great to have an alternative water supply, we don't want to be seen as insensitive to our northern neighbors.”

Kidman said Davidge remains in contact with the city. “He updates us via e-mail,” he said. “Yes, he's still plugging along, and he may be the furthest along in the permit process, or maybe he's just the best at getting publicity.”

And there has been no shortage of publicity-not much good, though-up north. Here, Davidge has received only a token nod from the local media, although he showed no interest in being interviewed for this story.

Ed Kimura, head of the local Sierra Club's water subcommittee, was unaware that Davidge's plans were still ongoing, but he continues to believe that it's a lousy idea. “One of the reasons is that you have to be concerned about the impact it has” on the environment surrounding the Albion and Gualala rivers, which Davidge found via studies to be the most viable streams for water extraction. “He once tried to get the water from Canada, but they passed laws preventing that.”

While Davidge continually argues that the fresh water is wasted as it empties into the Pacific, Kimura counters that “this discharge is a natural process. I mean, you can argue that we should dam all the streams in California because that's water being wasted. That's an old idea whose consequence we now know-that it takes water away from the environment. This idea just doesn't make sense.”

Both boards of supervisors in Mendocino and Sonoma counties have agreed, sending resolutions in opposition to state water officials.

That's not likely to slow down Davidge in his pursuit of his wet dreams, however. He is a formidable proponent, even his critics agree, and his pedigree is high-falootin', if not admirable. His partners-he also presides over a company called World Water SA, a consortium of Saudi, Japanese and Norwegian interests-have been bagging up water in Turkey and spreading it around the world since the late '90s. A former aide to goofy Interior Secretary James Watt, Davidge knows the political landscape. He's even personally taken on the slings and arrows of protest from Northern California residents, many of whom cut their protesting teeth in fierce struggles with loggers.

Davidge will also most likely need to jump through yet another hoop, this one supplied by a wine-country state politician who now has Assembly Bill 858 sitting on Gov. Gray Davis' desk, ready for signing. The bill-the work of Assemblymember Patricia Wiggins, a Democrat from Santa Rosa-would require the state Department of Fish and Game to study the plan's effect on the population of Coho salmon and steelhead, already threatened from a century of logging. It would also require those findings to be integral in the state water board's eventual deliberations on Davidge's permits.

In April, a group calling itself the Friends of Gualala River wrote to Mayor Dick Murphy, urging him to oppose the water-by-tugboat plan. The mayor has not commented publicly on the proposal, even though group president Vivian Green called on Murphy to “reject the schemes of private water profiteers, both for the benefits of our local ecosystems and for the cost benefits of your municipal water users.”

Green noted: “There seems to be a nationwide and international trend to turn water into a commodity to be bought and sold on the open market, like electricity. We all managed to live through the inconveniences of blackouts last year, but we must not let this happen to water and allow control of this most vital resource to get into private hands.”

Ursula Jones, vice president of Friends of the Gualala River, said letters were also sent to the Water Department and county Board of Supervisors. Only the Water Department has replied so far, she added. The upshot of the comment was San Diego “had not signed any contract with any company to transport water in plastic bags to San Diego.”

What can environmentally minded San Diegans do to help? Well, first off check out the oppositions' Web sites-www.gualalariver.org and www.albionnation.org. Then send letters with your concerns to the state Water Resources Control Board, care of Division of Water Rights project engineer Kathryn Gaffney at gual_albion@waterrights.swrcb.ca.gov.