The battle is heating up over a potential desalination plant that would be built cooperatively by the the City of Santa Cruz and Soquel Creek Water District.
An active group of opponents to the plan known as Santa Cruz Desal Alternatives are well organized and active. Most recently, they called on a task force set up by the city and Soquel Creek (the task force is known as SCWD2) to appoint a "Citizen Customer Advisory Committee," although it's unclear exactly what that committee would be doing. (You can bet it won't be to help get desal built).
Paul Gratz, an anti-desal activist, read this comment to the task force: "We are all in a new participatory water supply and management era. No longer are public water agencies impervious submarines operating in splendid isolation within water silos."
I think what he means by that is "We don't want no stinkin' desal."
Actually, that's going to be the problem with the upcoming public debate. The two water departments are looking for answers to what seems to be the threat of not enough water in Santa Cruz in the years to come. The opponents really don't care what the facts say. They don't want desalination. End of story.
I can't imagine that the water departments will ever come up a study that will convince the opponents to change their mind.
Welcome to Santa Cruz politics.
