The history of this plant raises some interesting questions.
Is 'Necessity' really the 'Mother of Invention' -- or is it really more like 'Desperation'?
Santa Barbara working to reactivate mothballed desalination plant
by Amanda Covarrubias, LATimes.com -- March 3, 2015
[...]
Santa Barbara owns a mothballed plant -- built more than 20 years ago during another severe drought -- that can turn seawater into drinking water. But it was never used beyond a tryout phase before steady rain began falling again. Now, officials are working to press the Charles E. Meyer Desalination Facility back into service as the city's reservoirs continue to diminish.
[...]
"It has two big disadvantages: It's really expensive and it's energy-intensive," said Henry Vaux Jr., a UC Berkeley professor emeritus of resource economics who contributed to a 2008 National Research Council report on desalination.
It could also put elected leaders in the unenviable position of sticking customers with expensive desalination bills should stormy weather return.
[...]
Ah, running out of potable, clean water could end up being "expensive" too, especially if California ends up having to 'truck in' water from the Great Lakes, or somewhere.
Will Turning Seawater Into Drinking Water Help Drought-Hit California?
NPR.org, All Things Considered -- April 5, 2015
[...]
Entering the control room and seeing its big computers with tiny memories -- and floppy disk drives -- feels like stepping back in time to 1992. This is "about as sophisticated as it gets for this old facility," says Haggmark.
The intake, where ocean water first enters the desalination system, is about half a mile off the beach. Once it gets to the plant, the water flows through gravel and sand filters and finally, when all the debris is gone, into the reverse osmosis membranes -- salt removers.
Two gallons of ocean water go in; one gallon of drinking water comes out. The leftover gallon contains super-salty brine. This doubly salty water is mixed with the city's wastewater and then piped back out to sea and spread around, about 30 miles offshore.
[...]
Right now, the sources of electricity available to run desalination plants are not environmentally friendly. "Really, it's going to require us to find alternative energy sources to power these plants. So as we put more renewables online, it will become more environmentally friendly and more cost-effective," says Gonzalez [executive director of the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation].
1st comment:
Yuk! Is that what Santa Barbara normally does with its waste-water?
2nd comment: Can't these plants be powered by Solar? Drought-plagued California seems to have an over-abundance of that.
3rd comment: How is a 2 to 1 concentration of the sea's own salt [brine], harmful to the (already salty) ocean again?
Won't it just dilute, if done right? (Or sank in a deep enough spot.)
Well if you live in CA, and you find these questions relevant and perhaps even 'urgent' -- you will have your chance to follow the drama (maybe even attend), during the next few months of standards-setting activity, at your State's Water Board:
California Environmental Protection Agency
State Water Resources Control Board
Desalination Facilities and Brine Disposal
swrcb.ca.gov/water_issues
[...] The salt, minerals, and other compounds produced as a by-product of desalination are discharged into the ocean as hyper-saline brine. Brine is denser than the receiving ocean water and, depending on discharge methods, may settle on the seafloor and have adverse effect on marine organisms.
Currently, the Water Boards regulate brine discharges from these types of facilities through the issuance of National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits that contain conditions protective of aquatic life. However, the Ocean Plan does not yet have an objective for elevated salinity levels in the ocean, nor does it describe how brine discharges are to be regulated and controlled, leading to permitting uncertainty. The Ocean Plan also does not address possible impacts to marine life from new intakes for desalination facilities.
The State Water Board is considering amendments to the Ocean Plan that would address desalination facilities. The proposed Desalination Amendment would include components that: 1) clarify the State Water Board’s authority over desalination facility intakes and discharges, 2) provide direction to the regional water boards regarding the determination required by California Water Code section 13142.5, subdivision (b) (hereafter 13142.5(b)), 3) include implementation provisions for a statewide narrative receiving water limitation for salinity, and an option for dischargers to apply for a facility-specific receiving water limitation, and 4) include monitoring and reporting requirements.
Board Meeting - Consideration of Adoption of the Proposed Desalination Amendment – May 5, 2015
If you really want to be ahead of the curve, show up to that board meeting with the findings of these Scientists in Dubai -- who themselves are dealing with similar desalination by-products issues. They too, live and and manage survive in a serious desert afterall.
Scientists finding ways to help farmers maximise ground water
by Janice Ponce de Leon, zawya.com - Mar 29, 2015
[...]
Fresh water sources in the UAE [United Arab Emirates] are scarce. Farmers have to rely on ground water, which has high salt concentrations at almost half of the salinity of seawater, to irrigate their crops. So to get fresh water, they need to desalinate.
[...]
“So from the desalination unit, we get two products: the brine water and the desalinated water or fresh water. We use the desalinated water to grow high-value crops like tomato, asparagus, lettuce, cauliflower, quinoa, mustard, radish, these kinds of crops. This is the first part.”
The second part involves the brine being divided into parts to grow fish, in this case the sobaity (seabream), and seaweeds and grow salt-tolerant forage or grasses, and halophytes, which are plants that thrive in salty water like salicornia. This way, no water is wasted.
[...]
Nothing ever really gets done, and even fewer things ever get solved
-- by NOT doing them.
When those taps ever run dry, happy shiny people will demand Answers.
The time for caution and careful research will be over. As fresh water becomes the new 'hot commodity' of the 21st century.
Worth its weight in the 'stuff of Life'.