Why one of the cities most dependent on the Colorado River now has water for sale

A drone view shows the Carlsbad desalination plant's intake lagoon on the right and the discharge canal on the left, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025, in Carlsbad, Calif. Annika Hammerschlag/AP hide caption toggle caption Annika Hammerschlag/AP SAN DIEGO, Calif - Even as California is offering to take less water from the drought-shrunken Colorado River, one of the state's biggest cities that's long been the most dependent on it curiously now has excess water to sell. On a good year, San Diego gets barely eight inches of rain. And not too long ago, the picturesque coastal city was staring down major water supply shortages - it's notoriously at the end of the line of the Colorado River "straw," a good three hour drive from the shrinking river itself. But today, thanks in part to aggressive water recycling and urban and agricultural conservation programs and a big bet made on salt water, San Diego has a surplus and other thirsty nearby cities and states are eager to tap it. "I don't think we can save the Colorado River, but what we're looking to do is show that there is an opportunity to manage the system in a new way," says Meena Westford, director of imported water at the San Diego County Water Authority. San Diego Salt Water is for sale? At Carlsbad State Beach north of the city, roughly 100 million gallons of seawater gets pumped through gravel and sand and treated via reverse osmosis at the Claude "Bud" Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant. …