WaterDesalination losing ground as a solution to California’s chronic water shortage
According to the July 2011 census, more than thirty-seven million people live in California, increasing the pressure on the state’s water sources; desalinating sea water as a solution to the scarcity of fresh water is not a new technology — it has been around for more than four decades — but it has more recently been considered as a way to address California’s chronic, and growing, water shortage; a closer examination of the technology and its cost has cooled the initial enthusiasm for it
According to the July 2011 census, more than thirty-seven million people live in the state of California, increasing the pressure on the state’s water sources. Desalinating sea water as a solution to the scarcity of fresh water is not a new technology — it has been around for more than four decades — but it has more recently been considered as a way to address California’s chronic, and growing, water shortage.
The Seattle Times reports that the idea has run into problems, and rising construction costs, energy requirements for running desalination plants, and legal challenges have limited desalination in California to only one plant producing drinking water.
There are seventeen different desalination projects in various stages of consideration in the state, but none of them is close to being finished.
There are several different desalination methods. Reverse osmosis can be used to separate salt from water. Another method involves water being forced through salt-removing filters. To use these methods, however, pumps have to move huge amounts of water through filters, a process requiring a lot of energy.
In Saudi Arabia, Israel, and other Middle East countries, desalination has been used for years. In Israel, a desalination plant was approved last year which will add to the four already working in the country. The hope is that the five plants will work together to supply 75 percent of the country’s water by 2013.
In the United States, desalination has been slow to catch on due to tough regulations on where plants can be built, environmental laws force companies to show local governments that their plants will not have a negative effect on local wildlife before they can be built.
Money also plays a significant factor when it comes to desalination. It is cheaper to import water through pipes and tunnels than build and operate a desalination plant, and with the many states focused on using less energy and water in an effort to be greener, innovations such as low-flow toilets, stricter zoning laws, and rising water bills in some states have created less demand for water.
“We found that our demand for water had dropped so much since the time we started exploring desalination, we didn’t need the water,” Libby Pischel, a spokeswoman for the Marin Municipal Water District told the Seattle Times. “Right now, conservation costs less than desalination.”
In Sand City, California, a $14 million desalination plant is able to produce 600,000 gallons of water for a population of about 340 people. At this time, the plant produces half that amount with one-third being used in the city and the rest being used in Monterey County.
City leaders built the plant because they had no other possible water options.
“We’re just like Saudi Arabia. There’s nowhere else to get water and we want to develop,” Richard Simonitch, the city’s civil engineer told the Times.
Plans have not gone as smoothly in Monterey County as proposals for a desalination plant have been hobbledby mistakes, political scandals,and infighting. The delays have cost county taxpayers millions of dollars.
“Water politics in Monterey County is a blood sport,” Jim Heitzman, general manager of the Marina Coast Water District told the Times.
