Carlsbad Asks SDG&E; to Hold the Salt : Water: City wants utility to add a desalination unit if it revamps Encina power plant. Utility officials say they’re open to the idea.

For a while, the dirtiest words in Carlsbad were San Diego Gas & Electric Co. , but that’s changing now that the utility may have something the city wants, namely a water desalination plant.

City officials are quietly letting it be known that a desalination plant would be a welcome part of SDG&E;’s plan to modify and upgrade its huge Encina power plant, located on the city’s coast and visible for miles because of its 400-foot-high smokestack.

“If there’s not going to be a desalination element, we want to know why there can’t be,” said Eric Larson, who serves on the Carlsbad City Council and the Municipal Water District.

City Manager Raymond Patchett added: “I think the council would consider strongly a desalination plant if the environmental impacts were mitigated.”

Such sentiments reveal the dawn of a new era after Carlsbad and SDG&E; tangled last year over the utility’s plan to build a 460-megawatt energy plant, costing $388 million to $577 million, at one of five possible locations, including the existing Encina facility.

City officials, angry at the prospect of a bigger power plant along Carlsbad’s scenic coast, in January, 1990 slapped a temporary land-use ban on plant expansion and resolved to fight the proposal before the California Energy Commission.

However, the proposed expansion was linked to the merger of SDG&E; and Southern California Edison Co., and when that highly controversial move was rejected earlier this year, SDG&E; stopped talking about building a new power plant.

Then, last month, SDG&E; revealed a long-term plan for meeting San Diego County’s future energy needs that called for upgrading power-generating equipment at two plants, Encina and the South Bay facility in Chula Vista.

Such “repowering,” as it is called, involves installing state-of-the-art equipment but not enlarging the plant site.

Carlsbad officials, somewhat surprised by SDG&E;’s new plan to upgrade Encina in 1999, hope the project will also bring a facility to desalinate ocean or brackish well water. Larson said the city has always been interested in having a desalination plant, noting that “it’s a benevolent thing, it would be adding to the entire (regional) water supply.”

Patchett said, “We’ve asked the question a couple times, whether they’d consider desalination.”

So far, SDG&E; and the San Diego County Water Authority say they’re willing to consider building a desalination plant at Encina but that it’s too early to make a commitment. Currently, the two utilities have earmarked $250,000 to study whether it makes economic and environmental sense to build a desalination plant at SDG&E;’s old power plant in Chula Vista.

Bruce Williams, SDG&E;’s manager of generation projects, said that “SDG&E; is not interested in getting into the water business” but would consider providing the energy to operate a desalination plant at Encina if the water authority were a partner in the operation.

“We’ve agreed to be open-minded about another (desalination) project in the North County,” Williams said.

He noted Carlsbad’s changed political attitude toward SDG&E;, saying, “Yes, we see that a repowering seems to be somewhat more acceptable, particularly if in conjunction with a water desalination facility.”

However, Williams said the potential for a future desalination plant in Carlsbad largely depends on the water authority’s interest.

Byron Buck, the authority’s resources planning director, said his agency’s priority now is to study a desalination plant in Chula Vista, but a potential second desalination facility at Encina may be studied in the next few years.

“Regardless of the drought, we have long-term water needs,” Buck said.