Ocean Desalination

Ocean Desalination Facts

• Ocean desalination costs more than any other option
• Ocean desalination uses more energy than any other option–which means bigger contributions to global warming
• Desalination technology can kill marine life
• Desalination creates water pollution
• Desalination can fail to remove harmful chemicals from your drinking water
• Desalination projects invite corporate abuse of your public water systems
• Desalination is not necessary – we have other alternatives.  Conservation programs are cheaper and without the risks of desalination. They are not as profitable for private companies but they better serve the public.

Some elected officials get taken in by industry’s claims. Catalina Island is performing sea water desalination but only on a small scale; it would not be the same for the City of Los Angeles. The majority of existing desalination plants in the United States desalt brackish river or ground water, not ocean water, and usually for very small-scale industrial purposes. Desalination shouldn’t be used as a quick fix to our water shortage problems.

Conservation and recycling programs may be a much less expensive and less risky alternative to building desalination plants. For example, our nation’s water systems lose 6 billion gallons of water per day due to problems such as leaking pipes. Utilities cannot account for this water because many do not have the resources to implement comprehensive leak monitoring programs. It would be more cost-effective to concentrate on eliminating these leak problems. Desalination could create more problems than it solves.

Environmental & Health Issues:  Ocean water desalination can be greater than ten times more energy intensive than other options. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, water intake structures on power plants, which are very similar to planned desalination intakes, kill at least 3.4 billion fish and other marine organisms annually. This can result in a loss of millions of dollars of fishing revenue.

Environmental and Health Issues

A number of public health experts have expressed concern that new contaminants not present in normal drinking water could end up in our glass. Contaminants such as boron, algal toxins (for example, red tide) and endocrine disrupters might be found in ocean water and are concentrated through the desalination process. Since at times the oceans have been used as dumping grounds, anything can show up in the drinking water, such as unwanted/unregulated chemicals, pharmaceuticals, personal care products & others. Then, only a portion of the ocean water that enters the plant actually reaches the consumer. The remaining water ends up as a highly concentrated solution that contains both the salt from the ocean and an array of chemicals from the industrial process – which is released right back into the ocean, toxins and all.

Southern California Water Systems

What are Some Desalination Issues on the California Coastline?

Some coastline communities from all over the world have been desalinating their water. Such diverse countries as Australia, Spain, Singapore, Saudi Arabia & the other Gulf States have used this technique. Israel has just approved its fifth desalination (desal) plant and they are hoping that it will provide 75% of its drinking water by 2013. Along the Pacific Coast of CA there are now 17 proposals for desal facilities. SFgate.com says, “But many projects have been stymied by skyrocketing construction costs, huge energy requirements for running plants, regulatory delays and legal challenges over environmental impacts on marine life.” There are different techniques to de-salt water. Reverse osmosis is a popular technique and so is the practice of pushing ocean or brackish water through a salt-removing membrane filter at high pressure. Both of these practices are energy intensive because pumps are used to move tremendous amounts of water through the membranes. When possible it is cheaper to emphasize conservation like low-flow toilets and stricter zoning laws that require less water-intensive landscaping. These practices have decreased demand throughout CA. SFgate.com says, “Desalination plants can take water from the ocean or drill down and grab the less salty, brackish water from seaside aquifers. Because of their potential impacts to marine life, the California Coastal Commission reviews each project case-by-case.”

In Northern & Central California: As of Oct. 2012 there is only one small desal plant operating to create drinking water on the main California coastline and that one is at a former military base turned into an artsy seaside destination named Sand City, on Monterey Bay. According to SFgate.com,”The $14 million facility has the ability to produce up to 600,000 gallons a day of drinkable water for the town of about 340 people. Sand City’s plant now produces half that amount each day; a third is used by the city with the rest sent elsewhere in Monterey County.” Sand City had no possibility to acquire water so they turned to desalination because they wanted to develop the area. Nearby is another $7million desal plant in the town of Marina that has been closed because rising energy costs made the plant too expensive but they do see a day when the need for water will be so great that they will run the plant again. They are even planning another larger plant. SFgate says, “(Desal) Proposals have been fraught with mistakes, political infighting and scandal, and have cost Monterey area ratepayers tens of millions of dollars.” In Northern CA, the wealthy Marin County has been planning a desalination plant for 2 decades and they have spent millions on a pilot facility but now they have decided to discontinue their plans. Libby Pischel of the Marin Municpal Water District said, “We found that our demand for water had dropped so much since the time we started exploring desalination, we didn’t need the water.” “Right now, conservation costs less than desalination.”

What is happening in So. California: SFgate.com says, “There was great fanfare in 2009 when the last regulatory hurdle was cleared to build the Western Hemisphere’s largest desalination plant in Carlsbad, north of San Diego. At the time, it was proposed that the $320 million project would suck in 100 million gallons of seawater and be capable of producing 50 million gallons of drinking water a day. It was expected to come online by 2012.”. Since then, the plant owner, Poseidon Resources LLC, has been negotiating a water purchase agreement and is close to clinching a 30-year deal with the San Diego County Water Authority, a wholesaler to cities and agencies that provide water to 3.1 million people. The compact is essential for Poseidon to obtain financing to build what has become a $900 million project, which includes the seaside plant and a 10-mile pipeline. The San Diego agency hopes the plant opens in 2016 and anticipates desalination will account for 7 percent of the region’s supply in 2020. It estimates the cost is comparable to other new, local sources of drinking water, such as treated toilet water or briny groundwater.”