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In 2021, the city of San Diego formally launched the largest infrastructure project in city history, a sewage recycling program that when completed in 2035 would reduce the city’s share of imported water from about 85 percent to less than 50 percent.

The project has been a long time coming. In 2011, The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board published an editorial headlined, “The yuck factor: Get over it” that articulated why San Diegans should accept both the greater water independence and the science behind the plan: The water would likely be the purest and safest water in the system.

That was the first of multiple editorials we have written since then supporting the city’s Pure Water project, which comes with an eye-popping price tag of $5 billion and will significantly boost San Diegans’ water bills. We called it a “price worth paying” because by 2035, half of the city’s drinking water is expected to come from water recycling, a huge sum given an urgent need for reliable water supplies amid cyclical drought that the climate emergency will only make worse. Another huge benefit of the project is that it is expected to dramatically reduce how much sewage the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant sends into the ocean, avoiding upgrades to that plant that were estimated to be $3 billion or more. In other words, cheers, San Diego.

The project remains crucial to San Diego’s future, but it’s time to interject a note of caution for city leaders and residents alike: The largest infrastructure projects in history — think Boston’s beleaguered Big Dig or California’s troubled bullet train — can have a habit of continual cost overruns, and city officials recently acknowledged a huge error and construction delay that will cost San Diego at least $20 million — and potentially much more if it leads to additional delays that are entirely possible.

Constant flooding at the construction site of a large sewage-pump station off Morena Boulevard has necessitated the building of a large dam-like structure that will delay the completion date of the pump station and perhaps other parts of the multi-pronged, tightly-scheduled infrastructure project.

The San Diego City Council approved spending $20 million to pay for the dam last week. City officials are investigating whether the contractor might have to pay damages, but if not, the additional costs could be passed onto the city’s 275,000 sewer and water ratepayers. Because of course ratepayers are on the hook for any hiccups of this complex project.

Rising water costs aren’t limited to the project, either. Earlier this month, the City Council gave emergency authorization to pay chemical suppliers facing supply-chain and inflation issues an extra $80 million for chemicals that treat sewage and keep drinking water clean and healthy. That boosted contracts from $122.7 million to $203 million.

Again, the Pure Water project could not be more needed. Water will become more important, if not also much scarcer, in the drier years ahead. All the more reason for city officials to keep a close eye on the costs of their Pure Water project to ensure they don’t balloon out of control. City Council members should demand monthly updates on the project, in public meetings, so residents can be assured that when the taps run, their money doesn’t run dry.

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