{"id":327696,"date":"2025-10-23T23:41:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T23:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/327696\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T23:41:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T23:41:11","slug":"san-diego-deserves-representation-that-defends-its-water-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/327696\/","title":{"rendered":"San Diego Deserves Representation That Defends Its Water Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marco Gonzalez is the executive director of the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation. \u00a0<\/p>\n

For decades, the city of San Diego has worked toward one of the most ambitious and environmentally responsible infrastructure projects in its history: the Pure Water San Diego Program, a multi-phase effort that will provide nearly half of the city\u2019s water supply locally by 2035. This project represents not only technological innovation and environmental stewardship, but also hard-won progress toward water independence \u2014 freeing San Diego from the volatile grip of imported water from the Sacramento\u2013San Joaquin Delta and the Colorado River.<\/p>\n

So it was both shocking and deeply disappointing to read the recent opinion piece by Jim Madaffer<\/a>, one of the city\u2019s appointed representative to the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA), in which he publicly questioned the city\u2019s approach to water independence and parroted talking points that have long served the interests of the very agencies that profit from keeping San Diego dependent on imported water.<\/p>\n

Madaffer\u2019s statements \u2014 defending the Metropolitan Water District and criticizing the city\u2019s Pure Water initiative \u2014 are not only misguided but fundamentally inconsistent with his duty to represent the city\u2019s interests at the Water Authority. His op-ed effectively undermines the city\u2019s negotiating position in critical ongoing discussions about regional water rates, supply diversification, and infrastructure investments. As an appointed representative, his loyalty should be to San Diego\u2019s residents and ratepayers \u2014 not to external agencies or entrenched water bureaucracies.<\/p>\n

The city of San Diego\u2019s commitment to water independence is more than a policy choice; it is a moral and environmental imperative. With climate change intensifying drought cycles and threatening imported water supplies, local reuse and recycling are not luxuries \u2014 they are survival strategies. Pure Water San Diego is an exemplar of forward-thinking water policy, supported by environmental organizations, state regulators, and communities across the region. It is precisely the kind of innovation that state and federal governments should be encouraging \u2014 not the kind that should be belittled by the city\u2019s own representative.<\/p>\n

If Madaffer cannot or will not advocate for San Diego\u2019s independence in water policy, then he should step aside or be removed by Mayor Todd Gloria. The city deserves a representative at the Water Authority who will fight to protect its investments, advance its sustainability goals, and speak with one voice on behalf of the public interest \u2014 not one who undermines those goals in the pages of the local newspaper.<\/p>\n

The future of San Diego\u2019s water supply is too important to be politicized or sabotaged from within. The city\u2019s leadership must act swiftly to replace Madaffer with someone who understands that the path to true resilience lies in local control, sustainability, and innovation \u2014 not allegiance to outdated, centralized water systems that have failed both our ratepayers and our environment.<\/p>\n

San Diego deserves better. And our water future depends on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marco Gonzalez is the executive director of the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation. \u00a0 For decades, the city of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":327697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1269,3549,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-327696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-opinion","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-sandiego","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115426131008397873","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}