Montecito Gets Cold Feet over Desal

Threatens to Walk Away from Santa Barbara's Expensive Project

With Santa Barbara's $70 million desal plant about a week from completion, Montecito Water District's board is thinking twice about buying in after heavy February rains.

Santa Barbara’s new waterfront desalination plant is expected to go online as early as next week, but behind the scenes, negotiations over a 40 percent share for Montecito have stalled, raising the possibility that the wealthy community will opt out of the $70 million project.

The two sides, represented by staff employees, began weekly talks in October but haven’t met since January. In February, the Montecito Water District board requested a face-to-face meeting with the city council to hash out their differences. The city declined.

Then, in March, amid complaints that the city was “exacting a pound of flesh,” the Montecito board publicly aired its opposition to a number of key points, including the 20-year term of the agreement. Board directors also objected to a $237,500 annual fee that the city wanted to impose, on top of Montecito’s $1.7 million annual share of capital costs and up to $1.6 million in operational costs. Was this any way to treat a prospective partner? the directors wanted to know.