Recurrent droughts and uncertainties about future water supplies
have led several California communities to look to saltwater for
supplemental supplies through a process known as desalination.
There’s a war over the future of water on the Monterey
Peninsula and it’s taking place in the board chambers of half a
dozen state and local government entities. It’s also taking
place on social media and in the press.
Orange County has long been recognized as a worldwide leader
for developing state-of-the-art, environmentally sensitive new
water supply technology, and we are not resting on our laurels.
… This month, it was announced that the Huntington Beach
Seawater Desalination Plant will receive $585 million in credit
assistance under the EPA’s WIFIA program.
A bi-national conference at San Diego State University was
aimed at analyzing water resources in the Baja California and
San Diego border region where challenges include cross-border
pollution and water scarcity… Experts at the Reborder 2019
conference discussed ways to improve regional access to “a
secure and reliable water supply” through wastewater treatment
and desalination.
West Basin Municipal Water District took the next steps Monday
toward building a desalination facility in El Segundo, a
project that has drawn fierce opposition from conservation
groups — including some who staged a rally before the meeting.
Seeking to fortify the city against future droughts, the Palo
Alto City Council endorsed on Monday a long-term agreement with
Santa Clara Valley Water District and Mountain View to build a
salt-removal plant in the Baylands and then transfer the
treated wastewater south.
A proposed desalination plant in El Segundo could soon be one
step closer to reality. The West Basin Municipal Water District
will hold a special meeting in Carson on Monday, Nov. 18, where
the board will weigh whether to certify an Environmental Impact
Report for the proposal. … The board has not yet selected a
company to build the proposed plant, which could cost more than
$400 million.
Cal Am Water’s experts may have seriously underestimated the
potential impact the company’s proposed desalination plant
would have on the existing water supply nearby, the staff of
the California Coastal Commission concluded in a report
released this week as a supplement to its exhaustive report on
the overall project.
If California goes into another drought and Kern County needs
an extra supply of water, Santa Barbara is open to partnering
with communities like Kern County. “We’re able to do exchanges
with people, so you could in theory have someone in the Central
Valley be a partner in desal,” said Joshua Haggmark, water
resource manager for Santa Barbara.
In places like San Diego and Dubai, where freshwater is scarce,
humans turn to machines that pull the salt out of seawater,
transforming it into clean drinking water. … Many researchers
are working to improve the technology so it can reach more
people — and address climate change without contributing to it.
Now is the time to focus on Pure Water Monterey and scrap the
desal plans. If 10 years from now the recycled water project
doesn’t do the trick, and there’s still a need for a desal
plant, we can be optimistic that future advances in technology
will make any desal option more environmentally-friendly and
less expensive.
Late last month, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $100
million research grant to the National Alliance for Water
Innovation (NAWI) to lead an Energy-Water Desalination Hub.
Meagan Mauter explains how this very large and potentially
transformative project will work, and Stanford’s role in the
work.
After years of negotiations, the Montecito Water District is
closing in on a deal to buy 1,430 acre-feet of water from the
City of Santa Barbara, every year for the next 50 years. …
The city would produce the extra supply at its $72 million
desalination plant, at a yearly cost to Montecito of $4.3
million.
Activists and local government officials across Monterey County
have banded together to fight a proposed desalination plant
that could double the cost of water for some residents and
endanger an aquifer that serves low-income communities.
Desalinated seawater is the lifeblood of Saudi Arabia, no more
so than at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology,
an international research center that rose from the dry, empty
desert a decade ago. … Desalination provides all of the
university’s fresh water, nearly five million gallons a day.
But that amount is just a tiny fraction of Saudi Arabia’s total
production.
Touting a shift in local politics and a preferable alternative,
more than two dozen area elected officials signed on to a
letter to the Coastal Commission calling for denial of the
California American Water desalination project.
The final environmental study for a proposed desalination plant
in El Segundo will soon be released, the City Council for
adjacent Manhattan Beach learned this week, when it received
its first formal presentation on the potential project — even
though the West Basin Municipal Water District first pitched
the plant in 2015.
A Monterey County Superior Court judge has called a halt to
work on the California American Water desalination plant
project, at least temporarily, while a California Coastal
Commission appeal challenging the project’s source wells is
pending.
While cities on the Monterey Peninsula have been working to
address housing needs and the business community is actively
looking to create more jobs, there is one component they all
need to complete their plans – reliable, drought-proof access
to water.
The project is the first of its kind to tap agricultural
run-off among a variety of wastewater sources for conversion
into potable, drinking water that would represent about a third
of the Monterey Peninsula’s new drinking water supply.
Over 30 years, Cal Am’s Desal would cost $1.2 billion while the
Pure Water Monterey expansion would be only $190 million. But
the cost in dollars is not the only comparison that should be
made. The environmental cost comparison is also dramatic.
In an effort to widen the use of a nearly limitless — but
expensive — source of water for California and other places
worldwide that are prone to shortages, Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory has been selected to lead a $100 million
project aimed at bringing down the cost of desalination.
The Monterey Peninsula has gotten so good at conserving water
that there is no need to build a costly desalination plant for
decades – even if the region experiences unprecedented growth –
according to a report from the top executive at the Monterey
Peninsula Water Management District.
The San Diego County Water Authority’s 2019 fiscal year report
on the Carlsbad ocean desalination plant shows poor performance
at the facility. According to the report, Poseidon paid a
penalty of almost $2 million for non-delivery of water,
reaffirming concerns around affordability and reliability
raised by community advocates …
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
The Hub will focus on early-stage research and development for
energy-efficient and cost-competitive desalination technologies
and for treating nontraditional water sources for various end
uses.
Reaction has been predictably mixed to a new report that
concludes the Monterey Peninsula may be able to get by with
recycled water instead of desalinated water for the next two
decades and perhaps beyond.
The groundbreaking ceremony was decades in the making for the
North Pleasant Valley Groundwater Desalter Plant, which aims to
convert brackish water from the Calleguas Creek watershed into
potable water for the city of Camarillo.
Completion and operation of the much-anticipated Pure Water
Monterey recycled water project have been delayed again and it
is now expected to miss another key water delivery deadline set
for the end of this year.
With every passing week, California American Water clears more
hurdles as it sets out to build a desalination plant near
Marina. The most recent victory for the proponents of the $329
million project came on Aug. 28 at the California Supreme
Court.
Fifth graders now have a space to learn everything about water,
from conservation to careers in the water industry. The Hydro
Station is an initiative of the Chula Vista Elementary School
District (CVESD), the Otay Water District and Sweetwater
Authority. This facility consists of a classroom right next to
the Richard A. Reynolds desalination plant, which is estimated
to receive about 4,500 students every school year.
Arguing that Monterey County officials improperly ignored new
groundwater impact information and a viable, even preferable
recycled water alternative, Marina Coast Water District has
sued the county and California American Water over the county’s
narrow approval of Cal Am’s desalination plant permit.
Desalination began to lose its urgency among Californians and
their public officials two years ago, after the drought-busting
winter of 2016-17, when heavy rain and snow ended dry
conditions in most of the state. The idea of drawing potable
water from the sea became even less of a priority this year,
when an autumn of record-level fires gave way to one of the
state’s wettest winters on record.
Whenever the price of other water goes up, desalinating Pacific
waters becomes more enticing. It will become more so if the
price of filtering minerals out of salt water drops. But if the
price and availability of fresh water remains reasonable, as it
surely will be this year, desal stays in the back seat.
Jeff Urban, a staff scientist who specializes in new materials
for energy storage and conversion at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular
Foundry, a Department of Energy nanoscience research facility,
explains what forward osmosis is and how Berkeley Lab is
addressing the challenges.
Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) investigating how to make
desalination less expensive have hit on promising design rules
for making so-called “thermally responsive” ionic liquids to
separate water from salt.
Seven and a half years after it was formed, the Monterey
Peninsula Regional Water Authority is moving forward with a
smaller, less expensive version of itself. … The authority
has completed the vast majority of its mandate in backing a new
water supply for the Peninsula and can now be expected to shift
its focus toward dealing with the state water board’s Carmel
River pumping cutback order.
The project’s ocean-friendly technology has won praise from the
same environmentalists fighting a desalter plant proposed by
Poseidon Water for Huntington Beach, one of several things that
distinguish the south county plant from the more controversial
project to the north. … But the price tag is steep for a
district that serves a relatively modest population of 35,000,
just over 1% of the county.
A long-awaited Montecito Water District rate study, planned for
release this May, will not be finished until later this year,
officials said this week. The study can’t proceed until the
district finishes negotiating the terms of an agreement for
buying into Santa Barbara’s desalination plant.
The Bureau of Reclamation announced that 30 projects will
receive $5.1 million from the Desalination and Water
Purification Research Program to develop improved and
inexpensive ways to desalinate and treat impaired water.
Monterey County supervisors voted Monday to let California
American Water start construction on its desalination plant
even before the state Coastal Commission makes a decision on
the technology involved.
Only 15 out of the thousands of desalination plants operating
today worldwide are powered by nuclear. A small one is at the
Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant in California, slated to be closed
soon. The plant could power several huge desalination plants
for decades that could desalinate its own cooling water,
removing the most commonly stated problem with the plant.
The Monterey County Board of Supervisors will decide July 15 if
California American Water will be permitted to build its $329
million desal plant. The supervisors will be hearing appeals
brought by Public Water Now and the Marina Coast Water District
challenging the county Planning Commission’s decision to allow
Cal Am to proceed with this seriously flawed venture. There are
some major problems with the proposed plant.
A bill sponsored by U.S. Sens. Martha McSally and Kyrsten
Sinema would put aside hundreds of millions of dollars for
water storage projects, water recycling, and desalination
plants. … The bill is also sponsored by California Democratic
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and Colorado Republican Senator Cory
Gardner.
What is at stake is the water supply for the Monterey
Peninsula. Consuming water drawn from the Carmel River is no
longer feasible, neither ecologically nor legally. But the
power to decide on an alternative supply is largely vested in
the hands of public officials from outside the region.
Pure Water Monterey, the highly touted recycled water project,
is in default on a water purchase agreement with California
American Water after failing to meet a Monday deadline for
delivering potable water even as the project’s costs rise amid
the delay.
From sea to shining sea may take on a new meaning in
California, as state officials are reviewing billion dollar
plans to import water from Mexico’s Sea of Cortez to help raise
water levels at the Salton Sea.
The facility would serve two main purposes. In addition to
weaning Camarillo customers off imported water from Calleguas
Municipal Water District, it would also help filter out the
everincreasing amount of salt found in the plumes of water
beneath much of the eastern half of the city.
Cal Am, two members of the Coastal Commission and two local
appellants are challenging the Marina city Planning
Commission’s March 7 denial of a coastal development permit for
the $329 million desal project, including seven slant source
water wells and associated infrastructure
An affiliate of Aberdeen Standard Investments has agreed to buy
the Carlsbad desalination plant in Southern California for more
than $1 billion, according to people with knowledge of the
matter. A transaction could be announced as soon as this week,
said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because
the matter is private.
The desalination plant would have seven wells sloping into the
ground and sucking up water underneath the dunes, removing the
salt, and sending it to cities on the Monterey Peninsula …
but not Marina. They wouldn’t get any of the desalinated water
because they’re not served by CalAm. Biala and other Marina
residents oppose the plant because they think it will cause
irreversible damage to their town’s ecosystems.
The slower timeline for Huntington Beach resulted in it facing
new, stricter regulations and additional delays. The
controversial plant still needs two major permits, opponents
remain steadfast and a recent water-supply study raised
questions about the cost and need for the project.
The organization best known for backing a public takeover of
Cal Am’s local [Monterey Peninsula] water system filed an
appeal of the Planning Commission’s narrow approval of a permit
for the 6.4-million-gallon-per-day desal plant north of Marina
and associated infrastructure. The appeal argues the desal
project proposal fails to properly address several key details,
including groundwater rights, and calls for the county to
require a supplemental environmental review before considering
the proposal.
The combination of droughts and floods has given rise to a
process known as saltwater intrusion — what San Jose Mayor Sam
Liccardo refers to as his city’s greatest climate threat. …
In coastal regions like San Jose, overpumping allows seawater
to seep into the city’s aquifers, exposing local residents to
excess sodium in their drinking water. The problem is
compounded by sea level rise, which pushes seawater inland
toward the city’s filtration system.
Poseidon Water, owner of the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad
Desalination Plant, has received an updated permit from the San
Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board (SDRWQCB) governing
the desalination plant’s discharges into the Pacific Ocean.
Additionally, the permit includes structural and operational
changes to provide greater protection for marine life and water
quality.
A brackish water study conducted by consulting firm Aqualogic
has predicted three potential areas that can be tapped for
brackish water extraction in the Indian Wells Valley. … The
brackish water project has the potential to help expand local
supplies if the water is properly treated and brine removed.
Coastal Commission staff on Monday reiterated to The Herald
that Cal Am can appeal the city’s denial under the state’s
Coastal Act because the city charges an appeal fee. They called
the city’s own rules “internally inconsistent” and noted the
Coastal Act’s regulations supercede local ones.
We have learned over the last six years that the water need for
Santa Cruz to meet its own annual demand is 1.1 billion gallons
less than thought in 2014, when the two districts were pursuing
the desalination plant.
People are interested in California water problems, and they
ask reasonable questions. Here is a first installment of short
science-based answers to some reasonable questions often heard
at public and private discussions of water in California.
Even as stakeholders in the Colorado River Basin celebrate the recent completion of an unprecedented drought plan intended to stave off a crashing Lake Mead, there is little time to rest. An even larger hurdle lies ahead as they prepare to hammer out the next set of rules that could vastly reshape the river’s future.
Set to expire in 2026, the current guidelines for water deliveries and shortage sharing, launched in 2007 amid a multiyear drought, were designed to prevent disputes that could provoke conflict.
Poseidon Water might be fighting for its desalination future in
Huntington Beach, but the corporation’s representatives will be
in front of the California Coastal Commission for an entirely
different matter on May 9: the restoration and conversion of a
90.9-acre salt pond to tidal wetlands and 34.6-acrer Otay River
floodplain site in San Diego.
It was the best attended city council meeting that didn’t
happen. … But when everyone filed into City Hall, no
councilmembers were in sight. Only Assistant City Attorney
Deborah Mall appeared. She said Cal Am had withdrawn its appeal
at the last minute on April 29 and the council could not
proceed with a hearing.
In one key respect, California is lagging behind many other
parts of the world. Climate change is causing drought and water
shortages everywhere, but California has been slow to adopt a
solution that over 120 countries are using: desalination.
Cal Am announced it had been told by city officials its request
for the mayor and two council members to recuse themselves due
to alleged bias against the desal project would not be honored.
The company will now appeal the commission’s denial directly to
the Coastal Commission.
Citing long-running efforts to secure a new Monterey Peninsula
water supply and the state-imposed deadline for reducing
unauthorized water usage, the county Planning Commission
approved California American Water’s desalination plant north
of Marina on Wednesday.
Since Jim Madaffer became chairman of the board of the San
Diego County Water Authority, two long-time staffers have left
and talk has begun heating up about a multibillion-dollar
tunnel project to give San Diego a second connection to water
from the Colorado River. The tunnel plan would be the single
largest, most expensive and complex project the Water Authority
has ever attempted.
Considered by many the key to long-running efforts to cut
unauthorized pumping from the Carmel River, California American
Water’s proposed desalination plant project is headed to the
Monterey County Planning Commission next week. On Wednesday,
the commission is set to conduct a public hearing on a combined
development permit for the proposed 6.4-million-gallon-per-day
desal plant.
Cal Am is seeking California Public Utilities Commission
approval to start raising local customers’ rates by May 11 to
pay for the 7-mile pipeline from Seaside to Pacific Grove,
which is in operation and is designed to allow pumping of new
desalinated and recycled water sources from the Seaside basin
to local customers.
When you turn on a faucet on the Monterey Peninsula, you’re
consuming water that’s been illegally pumped from Carmel River.
Now, after more than two decades of this, scores of public
officials, utility executives and citizen advocates are working
– and sometimes fighting – to replace the region’s water supply
before state-mandated sanctions kick in. California American
Water is forging ahead with its plan: a desalination plant near
Marina.
Construction starts this month on a $1.5 million test well to
show whether desalinated groundwater could supplement the
drinking water supply for 86,000 customers of the Olivenhain
Municipal Water District. The district serves parts of
Encinitas, Carlsbad, San Diego, San Marcos, Solana Beach and
neighboring communities, and relies almost entirely on water
imported from the Colorado River and Northern California.
San Diego water customers will soon pay $6 to $13 more a month
to fund the first part of the city’s new recycled water
project, according to a newly released estimate. The city is
working on a multibillion-dollar plan to purify enough sewage
to provide a third of the city’s drinking water by 2035.
As a result of California’s outdated water infrastructure and
persistent droughts, some elected leaders are shifting the
focus to investing in seawater desalination to help address the
state’s water crisis. While less than half a dozen desalination
plants currently exist in the state, the idea is gaining
momentum and greater support at the state level.
The city is suiting up for construction of a new facility later
this year that will purify recycled water to create a new,
local source of drinking water for residents by 2022. Pure
Water Oceanside is a water purification system that aims to
reduce the city’s reliance on imported water, improve
groundwater resources, increase local water supply and
strengthen the city’s resiliency to drought and climate change
in an environmentally sound process.
Antioch’s plan to build a long-awaited brackish desalination
plant got a major boost this week when the City Council
officially accepted a $10 million state grant that will pay
toward design and construction. The city’s grant was one of
three statewide to be awarded in March 2018 from the Department
of Water Resources for desalination projects under Proposition
1…
The City of Oceanside is taking control of its water destiny,
investing in a facility to purify recycled water from homes.
“It’s not being used, it’s really a waste. A lot of that water
is going out to the ocean and it’s really a precious resource,”
said Cari Dale, Water Utilities Director for the city. This
Fall they’ll break ground on the Pure Water Oceanside facility,
which will sit right next to the San Luis Rey Water Reclamation
Facility.
The Regional Water Quality Control Board … detailed a
specific timeline for the board’s permit process — with a final
vote penciled in for Oct. 25. Poseidon Vice President Scott
Maloni interpreted that as a signal that board geologists,
engineers and administrators are confident they can work
through outstanding issues.
The only Monterey Peninsula city with its own desalination
plant is looking to install new intake wells to help balance
the salinity levels and increase output to the
300-acre-foot-per-year design capacity of the almost
10-year-old Sand City desalination facility. The plant, which
is owned by Sand City and is operated by California American
Water, is currently running at 200 acre-feet per year.
The city of Oceanside is receiving more than $2.6 million in
federal funding to increase its local water supply and to
reduce brine discharge into the ocean. The city will receive
$2.623 million in funding from the Bureau of Reclamation’s
WaterSMART’s Desalination Construction Projects under the Water
Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act (WIIN), subject
to federal appropriations.
A week after the Marina Planning Commission unanimously
rejected a key desalination project permit, California American
Water has filed an appeal of the decision to the Marina City
Council. On Wednesday, Cal Am filed the appeal to the council,
arguing the planning commission erred in its denial of a
coastal development permit for parts of the proposed desal
project.
A recently completed study on the cost effectiveness and
financial risk of proposals to meet water supply demands
through 2050 concludes that the controversial Poseidon
desalination project in Huntington Beach would produce more
water than the Orange County basin needs and cost ratepayers
far more than alternatives such as recycling and capturing
rainwater.
To make a real structural shift, utilities must engage a
broader group of actors in the process, and that is where cap
and trade comes into play, this time for water systems. … A
smattering of cap-and-trade schemes already aim to address
water pollution in various water bodies. Yet most such trading
programmes have focused on water quality. Now their frameworks
must be expanded to account for water quantity, encouraging
efficiency, reinvestment, and supply diversification.
Oceanside announced it will receive a $2.6 million federal
grant to build two more of the wells that the city has used for
more than 20 years to supply a portion of its drinking water.
The wells pump brackish water from what’s called the Mission
Basin, an area near the airport, the old swap meet property and
the San Luis Rey River. The city filters the water using the
same reverse osmosis process used on a much larger scale in
Carlsbad to desalinate seawater.
One tunnel or two, neither idea adds a drop of the water to
needs of the nearly 40 million people who call California home.
The tunnels simply divert existing water supplies while putting
in severe jeopardy the largest freshwater estuary west of the
Mississippi River, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that
juts into the western edge of Stockton. Clearly, there must be
better solutions. Three approaches leap to mind: storage,
conservation and desalination.
Although Santa Monica may be the most aggressive Southern California water provider to wean itself from imported supplies, it is hardly the only one looking to remake its water portfolio.
In Los Angeles, a city of about 4 million people, efforts are underway to dramatically slash purchases of imported water while boosting the amount from recycling, stormwater capture, groundwater cleanup and conservation. Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 announced a plan to reduce the city’s purchase of imported water from Metropolitan Water District by one-half by 2025 and to provide one-half of the city’s supply from local sources by 2035. (The city considers its Eastern Sierra supplies as imported water.)
The new administration has signaled a shift in water policy by
specifically talking about turning salty water potable after
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said he would support only a single
tunnel as part of the project known as WaterFix. … But
talking up desalination is much easier than making it a
reality. In the four years since California updated its
desalination regulations, none of the eight applications for
new or expanded facilities has been approved. Meanwhile, the
costs for the projects keep rising and the state has few
details about its plans.
As Californians, I believe we must look west to the Pacific
Ocean, where seawater desalination offers a proven, climate
change-resilient solution. No longer do we need verification
from Israel, the Middle East and Australia, where desalination
facilities have literally helped save lives and fend off
debilitating droughts due of climate change. Now, we can look
much closer to home — in San Diego.
In a recent paper, Stephanie Pincetl, director of the
California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA, and
co-authors argue that investments made over the years to
fortify the city’s supply with additional imported water have
not solved LA’s water shortages. … The paper asserts that LA
could become water self-reliant by strategically investing in
local supplies, and offers several concrete strategies for
improving LA’s water security.
A leader in a grassroots group pushing for interagency
transfers to solve regional water supply shortfalls has filed
an environmental lawsuit against Soquel Creek Water District.
The civil lawsuit … takes aim at the water district’s Pure
Water Soquel project, which its board of
directors approved in December. The suit points to alleged
shortcomings in Pure Water Soquel’s state-mandated
environmental impact report.
A partnership between Monterey One Water and the Monterey
Peninsula Water Management District, the project is designed to
produce up to 3,500 acre-feet of highly treated water per year
to the Peninsula for injection into the Seaside basin and later
extraction and use by California American Water for its
Peninsula customers. … The recycled water project is a
key part of the proposed replacement water supply
portfolio for the Peninsula to offset the state water board’s
Carmel River pumping cutback order.
San Diego is in the midst of spending roughly $3 billion on a
massive new water treatment system, but city officials can’t or
won’t tell customers how that will affect their water bills.
New water recycling plants will eventually purify enough sewage
to provide a third of the city’s drinking water. In
December, Voice of San Diego asked the city to estimate how
much customers’ bills will increase because of the Pure Water
project. The city, after weeks of delay, finally declined
last week to offer any estimate because “there is no simple
calculation” they could perform.
Technology already exists to treat reused water to levels
meeting or exceeding health standards. But adequate technical
capacity is not sufficient. Water reuse can trigger revulsion,
especially when water is reused for drinking or other potable
purposes. This note explores outreach and engagement strategies
to overcome the “yuck factor” and achieve public support for
water reuse.
California American Water’s Monterey Peninsula desalination
project is in the midst of another critical phase even as
a Carmel River pumping cutback order milestone requiring the
start of construction looms later this year. … The city of
Marina is on schedule to consider the project’s coastal
development permit application covering mostly proposed desal
plant feeder slant wells on the CEMEX sand mining plant by
mid-March, according to a senior city planning official.
Far less settled is how Newsom will fill his administration’s
most important positions regarding state water policy. One of
Newsom’s key tests confronts him immediate: State Water
Resources Control Board Chair Felicia Marcus’ term expires this
week.
The primary byproduct of desal is brine, which facilities pump
back out to sea. The stuff sinks to the seafloor and wreaks
havoc on ecosystems, cratering oxygen levels and spiking salt
content. … Researchers report today that global desal
brine production is 50 percent higher than previous estimates,
totaling 141.5 million cubic meters a day, compared to 95
million cubic meters of actual freshwater output from the
facilities.
Wade Crowfoot will lead the agency that oversees state parks,
the Department of Water Resources and the Department of Fish
and Wildlife, among other offices, Newsom announced Friday.
A lawsuit seeking a new environmental report for the
controversial Poseidon desalination plant proposed for
Huntington Beach was rejected by a Sacramento Superior Court
judge on Tuesday. Judge Richard Sueyoshi found the
supplemental report met legal requirements while noting the
2010 study had never been legally challenged.
Arizona must identify our next bucket of water. Championing
desalination along the California coastline is one long-term
solution that can help secure Arizona’s economic and water
future.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has named Jared Blumenfeld, a
former Obama administration official and longtime environmental
advocate as the new secretary of the California Environmental
Protection Agency. Blumenfeld, 49, of San Francisco, will run
the agency, known as Cal-EPA, which oversees a broad range of
environmental and public health regulations statewide, on
topics that include air pollution, water pollution, toxics
regulation, pesticides and recycling.
A government-funded five-year, $100 million effort to develop
technologies around water desalination is seen as the best hope
in generations for making the technology accessible.
Montgomery is known for fostering collaborative relationships
among stakeholders and as a leader in protecting and restoring
water quality within California and throughout the Southwest
and the Pacific Islands. He is currently serving as the
Assistant Director of the Water Division in the US
Environmental Protection Agency (Region 9).
This 2-day, 1-night tour offered participants the opportunity to
learn about water issues affecting California’s scenic Central
Coast and efforts to solve some of the challenges of a region
struggling to be sustainable with limited local supplies that
have potential applications statewide.
In the wake of filing lawsuits in state Supreme Court
challenging approval of the California American Water
desalination project approval, the Marina Coast Water District
and the city of Marina have both filed petitions with the state
Public Utilities Commission for rehearing of the desal project
application.
In a widely anticipated move, the city of Marina and the
Marina Coast Water District filed lawsuits last week in
state Supreme Court challenging the California Public
Utilities Commission’s approval of California American Water’s
desalination project.
The controversial Poseidon desalination plant proposed for
Huntington Beach is the least cost-effective option and carries
the most fiscal risk of key water projects being pursued in
Orange County, according to a newly released draft report.
The San Diego County Water Authority Friday announced it will
cease work on a seawater desalination plant at Camp Pendleton
because of excessive permitting and cost hurdles by the State
Lands Commission.
After six and a half years of review, the state Public
Utilities Commission on Thursday approved a permit for
California American Water’s Monterey Peninsula Water Supply
Project, including a North Marina desalination plant.
In a sign of how seriously the state Public Utilities
Commission is taking the debate over the future of water supply
on the Monterey Peninsula, all five commissioners attended a
CPUC oral argument hearing on California American Water’s
proposed desalination project in San Francisco on Wednesday.
Several of those who attended the hearing said three of the
five commissioners asked a number of questions of the parties
to the desal project proceeding, and all five appeared “engaged
and interested” in the issue.
In a major development for California American Water’s
long-sought desalination project, the California Public
Utilities Commission has issued a proposed decision
recommending approval of the proposal known as the Monterey
Peninsula Water Supply Project.
After a protracted legal battle, a California Public Utilities
Commission ruling has been issued requiring California American
Water to release by this week unredacted [Monterey] county
Water Resources Agency invoices for work on the long-defunct
regional desalination project at the heart of a $1.9 million
settlement agreement between the two.
A California Public Utilities Commission proposed decision on
California American Water’s desalination project will be issued
by Monday next week (Aug. 13), and will appear on the
commission’s Sept. 13 meeting agenda, according to a commission
spokeswoman.
Concerns over the cost and environmental impacts of desalinated
water were overridden by the desire to fortify water supplies
when the Orange County Water District board voted 6-2 Wednesday
to approve non-binding contract terms with Poseidon, which has
spent 20 years on the desalination plant proposal for
Huntington Beach.
The day of reckoning is drawing near for Huntington Beach’s
long-planned desalination plant, which would help quench Orange
County’s thirst with sea water and free up imported water for
the rest of the Southern California. Twenty years and $50
million into the process, officials with plant purveyor
Poseidon are optimistic they will get their final two permits —
possibly by year’s end.
Sin City has never been a place that thinks small. So it should
come as no surprise that Las Vegas – about 300 miles from the
Pacific Ocean – is pondering seawater desalination to meet its
long-term water demand. That doesn’t mean Vegas plans to build
a pipeline to the ocean. More likely, it would help pay for a
desalination facility in a place like Mexico, then trade that
investment for a piece of Mexico’s water rights in the Colorado
River.
Not if, but when. That’s the future of water desalination
plants in Arizona, according to the head of the state’s water
department. They are controversial and expensive, but Arizona’s
current leadership views desalinated water – or “desal” – as
key to the state’s long-term water plans. Arizona sits atop an
estimated 600 million acre-feet of brackish water.
Several parties including the Monterey Peninsula mayors
regional water authority have called for delaying California
American Water’s proposed Marina desalination plant for a year
or more to allow pursuit of a proposed Pure Water Monterey
recycled water expansion and continued settlement talks in an
attempt to avoid litigation.
California water officials have approved $34.4 million in
grants to eight desalination projects across the state,
including one in the East Bay city of Antioch, as part of an
effort to boost the water supply in the wake of the state’s
historic, five-year drought.
With Tijuana and other rapidly growing coastal cities heavily
dependent on the Colorado River, Baja California urgently needs
to find new water sources. Baja California Gov. Francisco Vega
de Lamadrid’s administration has offered a solution: Build the
largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere, enough to
ensure a supply for decades to come.
A coalition of non-profits is asking a superior court to
reverse a state agency’s decision to greenlight a
long-proposed, controversial desalination plant in Huntington
Beach. … The Poseidon desalination plant has been proposed
for the site of the AES power plant on Pacific Coast Highway in
Huntington Beach for nearly 20 years, and has been continually
challenged and fought by environmental groups.
The small Stinson Beach County Water District is looking at
desalination as a way to guard water supplies as hoards descend
on the beach community in summer, and as drought and climate
change loom. The district serves about 730 residences and 2,000
people in and around Stinson Beach, drawing water from four
creeks as well as groundwater supplies.
The final round of battles between the people who want to build
the Poseidon desalination water plant, and the grass roots
environmental groups who oppose it, began Thursday in a crowded
city hall chamber in Huntington Beach. … The
three-member [State Lands] commission voted late Thursday to
approve the project as long as the operators agree to eliminate
or reduce carbon emissions.
A proposed Huntington Beach seawater desalination plant passed
a major regulatory hurdle Thursday when a marathon session at
City Hall concluded with an endorsement from the California
State Lands Commission.
A regulatory showdown that could set a precedent for large
scale desalination plants throughout the state is expected to
take place Thursday in Huntington Beach where a three-member
commission will decide whether the hotly contested Poseidon
ocean purification plant can move forward.
As supporters and opponents of a proposed Huntington Beach
desalination project gear up for a key meeting before the State
Lands Commission, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has weighed in.
Poseidon Water announced this week that its proposed ocean
desalination plant in Huntington Beach would employ an
environmental protection and energy efficiency plan. But that
didn’t halt criticism of the controversial facility.
A desalination plant planned for Huntington Beach and more than
a decade in the making got a small step closer toward opening,
this week, after its application with the regional water
district was determined to be ready for consideration. The
agency also has enough information to make a decision about
whether the project complies with the state’s ocean plan.
With Baja California pushing forward on its plan for a massive
desalination plant in Rosarito Beach, a ground-breaking
proposal to pipe some of that water to the United States has
overcome a key hurdle. The U.S. State Department’s approval of
a presidential permit marks a step forward for the Otay Water
District and its vision for a cross-border pipeline to import
the desalinated water from Mexico.
State Public Utilities Commission officials are seeking input
on whether to conduct new hearings on California American
Water’s proposed Monterey Peninsula desalination project to
address a number of issues, potentially including an updated
project demand forecast and desal plant sizing evaluation that
could lead to a smaller initial plant that could be more easily
expanded as demand grows in the future.
As California officials struggle to decide on long-term fixes
for the receding lake, there’s new momentum around an old idea:
importing seawater from Mexico’s Sea of Cortez, and using the
area’s plentiful geothermal power to desalinate that water. A
subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy, which
already operates 10 geothermal plants in the area, is
developing a seawater desalination proposal and has pitched it
to lawmakers in Sacramento.
The long debate over Poseidon Water’s proposed ocean
desalination plant in Huntington Beach continued this week as
the California State Lands Commission released a draft of a
supplemental environmental impact report analyzing planned
additions to the facility that are meant to reduce potential
harm to marine life and increase the plant’s efficiency.
A Boston-based water development company is paying former Sen.
Barbara Boxer to push for approval of a proposed seawater
desalination plant that has been mired for years in
environmental controversy.
A new nationwide study has unearthed the huge hidden potential
of tapping into salty aquifers as a way to relieve
the growing pressure on freshwater supplies across the United
States. Digging into data from the country’s 60 major aquifers,
the U.S. Geological Survey reports that the amount of brackish
— or slightly salty — groundwater is more than 35 times the
amount of fresh groundwater used in the United States each
year.
A California American Water official argued the company’s
desalination project can secure key permits and approvals
within six months of certification of the final project
environmental review document and start construction shortly
afterward, despite a series of delays involving the draft
report and the prospect of seeking a critical permit from the
city of Marina.
A Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary representative said
the latest delay involving California American Water’s proposed
Monterey Peninsula desalination project — a 30-day extension of
the public comment period on the project’s draft combined state
and federal environmental review document — could push back
finalization of the report by a month.
California’s historic drought may be winding down. But water
officials across the Golden State are increasingly exploring a
hidden but promising way to add to the state’s water supply:
removing salt from the billions of gallons of brackish — or
distastefully salty — water that lies deep below the Earth’s
surface.
A document purportedly leaked from the Trump administration
indicates that the proposed desalination plant in Huntington
Beach is among 50 infrastructure projects nationwide that the
president has designated as a priority.
The U.S. imports vehicles, equipment, fresh produce and other
goods from Mexico. That list may soon include water too, now
that a San Diego County water district is looking south for
help to diversify its supply.
On a a picturesque summer afternoon, West Basin Municipal Water
District officials chose to woo regulators with a stroll by the
beach in El Segundo, stopping to admire an unadulterated strip
of California coastline. … A few hours later,
environmental advocates held a town hall two miles away in
Manhattan Beach.
Huntington Beach residents urged a state agency to require a
more comprehensive environmental impact report before the
proposed Poseidon desalination plant could receive a new lease
on state land.
Poseidon Water hopes to help quench Orange County’s thirst, but
first the company’s proposed desalination
project must slake a thirst of its own. That’s why
Poseidon has long eyed a coastal power plant that has, for more
than a half-century, sucked up seawater to cool its massive
generators.
A protracted conflict over whether and how to protect fish from
dying at desalination plants is clouding prospects for what
would be California’s second large plant of this type – and for
the future of desalination along the entire
California coastline. For years, a proposed Poseidon
Resources desalination plant in Huntington Beach in Orange
County has been kept in limbo.
A new ruling issued by a state Public Utilities Commission
member has indicated the full commission likely wouldn’t
consider approval of California American Water’s Monterey
Peninsula desalination project until March 2018, four months
after company officials had hoped, and suggested that
consideration could be delayed even further.
California American Water’s Monterey Peninsula desalination
project will cost nearly $9 million less due to a shift in the
delivery pipeline route requested by Monterey city officials
years ago.
As plans move forward for a massive desalination plan in
Rosarito Beach, a proposed pipeline to carry some of that water
to San Diego County is undergoing scrutiny by the U.S.
State Department.
Backers of a new Monterey Bay desalination project think they
have found a fix for the environmental problems posed by most
seawater intakes: Instead of drawing seawater from the beach,
they plan to draw from the one of the world’s deepest marine
canyons.
In what local water activist Ron Weitzman promises is a
precursor to further litigation, the Water Ratepayers
Association of the Monterey Peninsula has filed suit against
the state Coastal Commission and Monterey County seeking to
halt California American Water’s slant test well program for
the proposed desalination plant project.
Carlsbad’s new desalination plant went through years of
regulatory review and faced 14 legal challenges from
environmental groups before it opened last year. Six months
after opening, it’s still facing regulatory hurdles, including
one that’ll make the water it produces more expensive.
A 10-party settlement agreement aimed at resolving California
American Water’s desalination project return water obligation
was submitted Tuesday to the state Public Utilities Commission.
Water managers are taking the next steps in exploring whether
to increase the amount of drinkable water produced from
desalination in San Diego County by up to four times the
current level.
A desalination plant proposed near San Juan Creek could produce
as much as 15 million gallons of drinking water daily and
create a reliable source for South County-area reserves in the
wake of an earthquake or drought, officials said. … On
Thursday, district officials will hold a community meeting to
discuss the project and its environmental report.
This week on Sea Change Radio, host Alex Wise speaks with
energy reporter from The Desert Sun, Sammy Roth. He recently
researched a piece about efforts to make desalination more
commonplace in California.
Citing potentially higher costs that would be passed on to
customers, Orange County’s largest provider of water to homes
and businesses is intensifying its opposition to a key
supplier’s plan to buy desalinated water from a proposed $1
billion Huntington Beach plant.
In response to the recently launched Poseidon desalination
plant in Carlsbad, state officials have agreed to dramatically
ease water conservation goals in San Diego for almost all
residential water users. The adjustments will nearly cut in
half required water savings throughout the region, the San
Diego County Water Authority announced Thursday.
When it comes to finding new sources of drinking water for
residents of a coastal state mired in drought, some say
desalination gets little respect in Sacramento.
California American Water’s latest Monterey Peninsula water
supply project cost estimates show a larger desalination plant
would cost the same as previous estimates, but a smaller desal
plant would be more expensive. That would potentially squeeze
the cost of a supplemental recycled water project unless it
qualifies for grants and low-cost financing.
With Monday’s ceremonial opening of the Western Hemisphere’s
largest ocean desalination plant, a new era began for water use
in San Diego County — and possibly for the entire parched
state.
Poseidon Water’s desalination plant in Carlsbad is poised to
begin regular operations within days — decades after water
officials first considered harvesting drinking water from the
sea and 14 years after they formally took the first steps
toward its construction. The opening, to be celebrated with an
anticipatory ceremony Monday, will be a milestone for the
company, for arid San Diego County and for all of California.
The newest weapon in the war on drought in California has
arrived, an engineering marvel that will harvest drinking water
from the ocean on a scale never before seen in the Western
Hemisphere.
The $1-billion desalination plant coming online next month in
Carlsbad will fit right in with years of careful planning and
investment in water supply in San Diego County. It will also
worsen a peculiar San Diego problem amid a multiyear drought:
an oversupply of water.
This 2-day, 1-night tour in the San Diego County included a
private tour of the new Carlsbad ocean desalination plant,
the largest such facility in the Western hemisphere and designed
to increase the San Diego area’s water supply reliability.
On a 15-year project, it seems silly to complain about a
month’s delay. Still, for more than a year now, people
have been told about a November opening of the $1 billion
Poseidon desalination plant in Carlsbad.
There’s far more riding on the Americas’ largest seawater
desalination plant than the 50 million gallons of drinking
water it will produce for the San Diego area each day.
A firm known for its work on major California desalination
projects has been chosen to conduct a combined federal and
state environmental review for the Deep Water Desal proposal.
A groundwater replenishment project aimed at providing the
Monterey Peninsula with potable recycled water continued to
forge ahead of California American Water’s desalination project
during a state Public Utilities Commission hearing Monday.
California American Water is expected to resume pumping from
its stalled Monterey Peninsula desalination project test slant
well operation by early November after the Coastal Commission
gave its unanimous approval Tuesday.
Along a picture-postcard stretch of coast in Carlsbad near San
Diego, fishermen cast their lines into an emerald seawater
lagoon. In a few short weeks, the lagoon will also be feeding a
steady supply of water into what will be the largest operating
desalination facility in North America.
A more thorough, joint environmental review of the oft-delayed
Monterey Peninsula desalination project by the Monterey Bay
National Marine Sanctuary and the state Public Utilities
Commission will likely take about a year to draft and finalize,
according to representatives of both agencies.
Two weeks ago, an expert panel weighed in against the economic
feasibility of burying water intake pipes under the sand at a
proposed desalination plant in Huntington Beach.
California American Water and Monterey County have been awarded
a combined $1.8 million in attorney fees from Marina Coast
Water District in the regional desalination project lawsuit.
The fate of a proposed water desalination plant in Huntington
Beach remains uncertain after a panel of experts has concluded
that it would be too expensive to build it using intake pipes
under the sea floor. That was the approach favored by the
California Coastal Commission, whose approval is needed to
begin construction.
Saddled with mandatory water conservation measures and no
relief from the drought in sight, city officials here now are
considering increasing Antioch’s water supply with a
desalination system.
Facing another delay on California American Water’s
desalination project, the Monterey Peninsula regional water
authority weighed in this week on the major reasons for the
delay — the apparent Geoscience conflicts of interest and the
stalled test well operation.
California American Water officials have acknowledged using
patented slant well technology by Geoscience president Dennis
Williams in the Monterey Peninsula desalination project after
previously denying it.
A water conservation group argued in court this week that the
San Diego County Water Authority needs to do more to account
for the potential environmental effects of its upcoming
projects, particularly the water desalination plant scheduled
to open in Carlsbad.
Santa Barbara City Council members on Tuesday unanimously
approved spending $55 million to reactivate a mothballed
desalination plant that could provide the city with
nearly a third of its drinking water.
Healdsburg’s Aaron Mandell wants to build a $30 million
desalination plant in the San Joaquin Valley that would use the
warmth of the sun to distill former irrigation water and reuse
it on thirsty farms. … “I think everybody is trying to
stretch the supplies every way they can,” said Jennifer Bowles,
executive director of the nonprofit Water Education Foundation
in Sacramento.
State Public Utilities Commission judge Gary Weatherford has
ordered California American Water and contractor Geoscience
Support Services president Dennis Williams to disclose details
of their agreements involving the Monterey Peninsula Water
Supply Project.
In order to sort out an apparent conflict of interest and its
fallout, the state Public Utilities Commission on Thursday
extended the public review period for California American
Water’s latest desalination project’s draft environmental
impact report by nearly three months.
The slumbering desalination plant that rests off the Ventura
Freeway in a seedy area called the Funk Zone might one day be
the answer to this coastal city’s desperate need for water.
California American Water and a group of experts will be asked
to prove regional agricultural irrigation pumping caused most,
if not all, of the decrease in north Marina groundwater levels
that halted pumping of the Monterey Peninsula desalination
project’s test slant well last month.
Far from the Colorado River, Baja California’s coastal regions
are increasingly looking to alternative sources of supply — and
desalination has become a favored option.
A glistening spectacle on the west Fresno County prairie could
be a rock star in California’s next drought. It’s a mirrored
solar array longer than a football field, collecting heat to
boil salt and other impurities out of irrigation drainage. …
The technology is among Valley water stories that The Bee will
tell this month in a weekly series.
For the expected 1,500-plus people attending the International
Desalination Assn. World Congress, the highlight will be a
Sept. 4 tour of the $1-billion desalination plant under
construction in Carlsbad.
As environmental review for its Monterey Peninsula desalination
project approaches a critical stage, California American Water
is already moving ahead with hiring contractors for key aspects
of the project.
Faced with the continuing drought, Orange County water
officials are looking into the possibility of purchasing water
from a proposed Huntington Beach ocean desalination plant.
With drought impacts in full effect, some water agencies are
looking at desalination as way to improve water supplies. Now
the state Water Resources Control Board has passed an amendment
to its codes requiring new or expanded seawater desalination
plants to use the best available technology to protect all
forms of marine life.
California adopted new rules Wednesday to help cities and water
agencies figure out the best way to siphon water from the sea
and turn it into drinking water without killing fish.
For the second time in less than a month, Monterey Peninsula
business leaders are seeking a legal and technical analysis of
California American Water’s desalination project in an effort
to sniff out any issues that could potentially further delay or
derail the proposal.
As surely as the hot, dry Santa Ana winds bring blue skies to
the coast and wildfires to the hills, severe California
droughts bring calls to build desalination plants up and down
the seashore.
Could the technology used in Israel that successfully turned
the country’s water shortage into a surplus be implemented in
California to ease the state’s drought? KQED Public Media
reporter Daniel Potter joins Alison Stewart via Skype from San
Francisco to discuss.
