Is Desalination of Pacific Ocean Water a Reliable, Affordable Option?

This report is part of an occasional series on how the drought in California is affecting individual communities in the state. I will be drawing on my experiences as a Master Gardener, my personal gardening book library and information from around the state. Links to previous stories in the series are provided at the end.

Desalination of seawater is one of the most common-sense answers to California's lack of water resources and part of the answer to sustaining both agricultural and residential water needs. The concept has been around since the 1970s, but only a few demonstration projects have been developed due to cost and environmental concerns.

So far, the $1 billion project in Carlsbad, California, is the most ambitious and expensive in water desalination in the history of the state. The plant is slated to be finished and open for operation in 2016, but it has taken years of struggles for advocates to win approval.

The project is California's best hope for a drought-proof water supply and will be thelargest ocean desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere. San Diego County will be provided with 50 million gallons of drinking water a day.

Arid climates likeIsraelandSaudi Arabiahave already turned to the ocean as a water source. Saudi Arabia boasts that 50 percent of its drinking water comes from desalination plants. Low energy costs have driven thermal desalination that is based on evaporation and the condensation of the steam as potable water.

What is it going to take to convince Californians that desalination plants are the best place to put water resource dollars?

"Everybody is watching Carlsbad to see what's going to happen,"said Peter MacLaggan, vice president of Poseidon Water, the Boston firm building Carlsbad the plant.

"I think it will be a growing trend along the coast," MacLaggan said in a May 29 San Jose Mercury News article. "The ocean is the one source of water that's truly drought-proof. And it will always be there."

The supporters of the project, however, spent more than seven years fighting to win approval. They won 14 lawsuits and appeals by environmentalists before advancing in 2012.

Opponents included the environmental groups Surfrider Foundation and Coastkeeper. They opposed the plant because it could prove disastrous for marine life. They argued the intake plant has the capability of "killing everything that floats,"according to Joe Geever of Surfrider.

Some government agencies also opposed desalination because of the process's energy consumption. The desalination plant will use close to twice as much energy as a wastewater-treatment plant available in Orange County.

Despite years of obstacles the project is moving forward. Survival of the West requires adapting to the Mediterranean weather patterns, which in the past have been ignored. Future water resources are incumbent upon investments that promote resources not dependent on California's mercurial weather.

Governments and municipalities need to investigate new water infrastructure investments like desalination of seawater in California. This resource has the potential to contribute to a19 percent annual growth expectationsin the global desalination market.

With an approximate global capacity of nearly 80m cubic meters per day, about 1 percent of fresh water consumed globally is derived from desalination currently.

Water controversies have been going on since the beginning of the 20th century, primarily in highly populated southern California and the agricultural basin of the Central Valley. Water diversion projects have been the solution for over 100 years, but those solutions pit northern and southern interests against each other in California "water wars" that are no longer relevant answers for the long term.

US Democratic SenatorsDianne FeinsteinandBarbara Boxerproposed emergency droughtlegislation of $300 million aid for the state in February, as well asenvironmental reviewsof water projects, so state and federal officials have "operational flexibility" to move water south, from the delta toSan Joaquin Valleyfarms.

While these solutions show advocacy and are needed, they are stop-gap solutions for the current water crisis, not the water crisis we know will happen again and again in a Mediterranean climate.

Opinion

Desalination of seawater is the closest solution we have to accessing resources naturally, instead of trying to create a landscape by artificial means disrespecting ancient California ecosystems. While we know climate change is accelerating and exasperating the arid Mediterranean climate, California and the West, in general, have always had less rainfall than the rest of the contiguous United States.

The tribal human history of California going back 15,000 years is a story of adaption to ecosystems and microclimates that coincide with various environments.

Central valley tribes perfected agriculture techniques like burning grassland to encourage growth of edible plants. Forest gardening was practiced in woodlands and wetlands to ensure seasonal plant growth. Low-intensity fires were conducted to encourage sustainable, wild agriculture to encourage cyclical"primitive permaculture."

Desert tribes in the southwest learned to live in an area of the state deprived of water resources. They organized villages next to oases and seasonal water courses.

California is located next to the largest water course in the West: the Pacific Ocean. Accessing this water resource is expensive—no one denies that. But by comparison, the costs in dollars and suffering could be more expensive and devastating in the future without dependable, permanent solutions.

Like California's ancestral inhabitants, we need to become a self-sustaining community using natural resources, not creating artificial, short term environments that ignore weather patterns we know are native to California and the West.

Source: All Voices

Media

Taxonomy

• Desalination
• Sea Water Filtration
• Sea Water Desalinisation