Three years ago, the city council of La Quinta, California, unanimously voted down a permit for Coral Mountain, a development project that would have included a Kelly Slater Wave Co. pool as its central attraction. The rejection came after a coalition of local residents lobbied against the development, citing a host of reasons for their opposition. Noise, light, and traffic congestion were a few–and so was water use. According to one of the developers, the wave basin would have used around 26 million gallons of water a year.
At the time, the proposal’s water use became a cause celebre that garnered national news coverage–even John Oliver made fun of the Coral Mountain proposal on an episode of Last Week Tonight. Yet, just two years later, La Quinta’s council greenlit a new proposal for the same plot of land. This time, the development will feature a golf course whose water requirements will be around 27% more than the Coral Mountain basin would have needed. Meanwhile, nearby Rancho Mirage approved a new wave pool at Disney Cotino, while three others in the drought-prone Coachella Valley were either in operation or in the works.
The discrepancy underscores the complexities of water-use permitting in the U.S.–and particularly in Western states, where water scarcity is a constant threat. First, there’s a labyrinthine web of criteria and policies that developers must navigate in order to be considered for approval. Then–potentially months or years later–those plans finally land at city councils, which have the ultimate power of accepting or rejecting proposals. And all along, every project is subject to public opinion.
Water Sourcery
One of the promises of wave pools is delivering a taste of the ocean to almost any location. But when it comes to water use and permitting, location counts from day one. Water sources and regional context inform not only approaches to water use and development, but also how willing a community might be–in terms of both policy and politics–to greenlight a project.
At a place like Waco Surf in Waco, TX, the wave pool water comes in part from the area’s lake, which is reliably fed by a series of rivers and tributaries. At Revel Surf in Mesa, AZ, developers were able to tap into an existing well on site.
Elsewhere, though, water sources are more contested commodities. For Cody Larkin, CEO of Desert Lakes LLC, building a wave pool in southern Utah had once seemed impossible. He and his partners had already built a similar community in nearby Hurricane, Utah, where they were able to buy water rights from existing property owners with private sources on the land. But given the scarcity of water in the region, he said, he figured building another wave pool there was just a “pipe dream” (so to speak).
That was before he learned about the brackish water–which is slightly salty and non-potable–sitting below another property in nearby St. George.
“We started looking at the water and realized that it’s no good for secondary or irrigation water, and it definitely doesn’t work for culinary,” said Larkin. “But it’s perfect for a pool by just adding the chemical process that you do to make it sanitary and chlorinated. It’s a huge amount of water that’s just totally untapped.”
Because the costs of making brackish water drinkable are high, Larkin and his team were able to make a case for putting it to use for waves (albeit not without dissent). The project, PerfectSwell Zion, is slated to open in 2027.
California Desert Examples
In the Coachella Valley, however, water rights are almost exclusively tied to a regional aquifer. Snowmelt and rain contribute to the supply, but the area also relies on water from the Colorado River and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta–overused sources that make water use one of the valley’s hotbed issues. In the case of Palm Springs’s DSRT Surf, which is slated to open next year, a creative approach to de-landscaping an adjacent golf course helped make the case for net-zero water use. Disney’s Cotino Bay, in contrast, has its own aquifer under the property, and bolstered their case with sustainably-minded practices like rainwater harvesting and water recycling.
Regulatory requirements
Before projects even get to public debate and city councils, there are thickets of bureaucracy to get through. Coachella Valley, where Coral Mountain was blocked, offers a window into the complexities.
“All large-scale projects must undergo the process of preparing an Environmental Impact Report, as mandated by the California Government Code and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA),” Lorraine Garcia, Communication Manager for the Coachella Valley Water District (CVWD), said via email.
The key section of the report with respect to water-use permits, she said, is the Water Supply Assessment (WSA). A city or county must apply for a WSA from the local water agency–like the CVWD–before moving forward with a proposal. The CVWD doesn’t have the authority to approve or reject a development proposal, but it’s a key step on the road to city council reviews.
What’s more, the CVWD is subject to its own set of mandates and regulations, which it takes into consideration for each WSA. California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), for example, requires the agency to maintain the sustainability of the local groundwater basin for the next 20 years at all given times. Any proposal, therefore, must fit into the collective water-use plan among the CVWD, cities, and counties.
Efficiency
Another nuance of the CVWD’s considerations isn’t just about how much water a project might use but how efficiently they might use it.
“For example, Cotino [in Rancho Mirage, CA] will utilize non-potable, recycled water for all outdoor landscaping, including residential yards,” said Garcia. “Their landscaping is also water-efficient and meets the requirements of CVWD’s Landscape Ordinance.”
For Larkin, of Desert Lakes LLC, efficient water use should be paramount for wave pools everywhere. There are the regulations, but also the optics.
“There’s a lot of ways to save water so that you can then harvest that excess and put it into wave pools easily,” he said. “The future of building surf parks is finding somewhere where there’s water usage that’s used incorrectly or inefficiently, and then making it efficient, and trying to harvest some of that.
“Then you can say, ‘Look, we’re saving a ton of water by doing this. We just want to use a little bit.’”
Political hurdles
No matter how well a developer plans for water use, the price tag and primacy of water can still be difficult hurdles to overcome.
“In my experience, what’s logical isn’t always politically correct,” said Larkin. Even with the discovery of brackish water at their proposed site, he said, getting approval for the project was still tough
“We went through the planning commission, it was no problem.” Larkin presented the project as a huge benefit to the city, tax-wise and visibility-wise, and showed that it would use an existing source of brackish water–a kind of runoff that’s not safe to drink, but which can be treated for safe recreational use.
“But then once it goes before the city council, they have constituents that they’re having to answer to,” he continued. “They don’t fully understand the situation and are clamoring, ‘how can you be using this water?’
“Politically, it’s really hard for anybody to get behind these projects in the desert without a lot of struggle. I try to help people understand why, and I believe it will change over time.”
