The Santa Barbara OKs Contract Talks for Desalination Plant

SANTA BARBARA — Santa Barbara City Council, after reviewing dozens of proposals to provide the city with emergency water supplies, has decided on desalination to cope with the drought.

The city will begin negotiating with a Massachusetts company that has proposed building the nation’s largest seawater desalination plant in Santa Barbara. The plant would be expected to provide about 5,000 acre-feet of water a year, about one-third of the city’s normal demand.

If the contract with Ionics Inc. is approved in September, the city could receive water by February, 1992, said Sandra Lizarraga, coordinator of the city drought response programs. The proposed contract is for five years, and the cost would be about $10 million a year.

Before the drought, the average monthly water charge for a single-family home in Santa Barbara was about $18. If the desalination plant is built, the cost is expected to about triple.

Before the project can begin, the city must undertake an environmental impact review. But city officials hope to complete the process as soon as possible, because if the drought continues they estimate that Lake Cachuma--the city’s primary water source--will go dry by the summer of 1992.