Op-Ed: Tuesday’s Work Study Exposed Zubia’s Water Plan as a Joke

If Raoul Zubia feels anything other than complete humiliation after Tuesday’s City Council water work study, he wasn’t watching the meeting.

Zubia, backed by a Washington, DC-area Super PAC and a statewide Mega PAC, has staked his campaign on Advanced Purified Water — which he also calls “toilet-to-tap.” Staff showed why it isn’t a serious option: thousands of dollars per acre-foot, only a tiny fraction of our supply, and idle for months because we do not generate enough wastewater to run it alongside existing golf-course reuse.

It seems that Zubia bet everything on a water message to distract from his other campaign shortcomings. His finance reports are chock-full of special interests, including the STR lobby, the Bar District, Axon apartment developers, partisan Democrats, and housing lobbyists. He has lobbied to rezone retail into thousands of high-density apartments, endorsed Axon’s apartment campus, blamed residents when Axon canceled their referendum, and supported city-run homeless shelters.

Michelle Ugenti-Rita correctly pointed out that no other American city relies on Zubia’s approach on the water issue and that health and safety standards remain unresolved. Barry Graham exposed the cost gap: SRP water costs about $50 per acre-foot and CAP water about $350, while Zubia’s water would run $4,600 to $8,400. Real options are a fraction of that price.

Residents deserve qualified and experienced leaders who listen to the city’s experts and follow the data. That’s why I’ll be voting for Barry Graham and Michelle Ugenti-Rita.