Why is ocean desal an unacceptable answer for California?
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- Drinking water quality of desal water is UNKNOWN.
- Ocean water intakes kill untold amounts of marine life.
Intakes further threaten vital marine ecosystems: an important
economic resource.
- Desal plant proposals are co-located with outdated, coastal
power plants. A recent 2nd Circuit Court ruling states that the
Once-Through-Cooling systems that utilize power plant intakes
must be phased out. Desal projects prevent inefficient,
polluting plants from being shutdown or retrofitted.
- Large-scale desal has NEVER WORKED in the U.S. The largest
U.S. plant located in Tampa Bay, Florida, (built by Poseidon
Resources), has NEVER produced the amount of water promised,
cost millions to build, and now needs to be fixed for $29-100 million.
- The Pacific Institute & the Planning and Conservation League
explains that California’s water needs can be met for the next 20
years or longer through:
- CONSERVATION
- WATER REUSE
- RECYCLING
These solutions are less expensive to implement and maintain than
desal.
- The projected cost of desal water is 2-4 times higher than other
water sources due to expensive: construction, operation and
maintenance, as well as extremely high energy costs. Currently, the
lowest proposed cost of desal water is estimated to be $1100 per
acre-foot. Imported water is only about $524 per acre-foot.
- Desal will not return water to the struggling ecosystems that
currently supply Californians with water and there are absolutely no
certified guarantees that it will. The high cost of desal water
forced it to be sold for high income development, causing over-
development in some of the only remaining open state coastal
areas. There are even proposals to send Californian ocean desal
water to support growth in Las Vegas, NV.
- Concentrated brine from Desal discharged after desalting ocean
water will have untold impacts on delicate coastal marine life.
Some of the proposed plants are located in rare sensitive rocky
habitat that is particularly at risk from the brine. The cumulative
impacts from these discharges are unknown and must be studied
before ocean desal moves forward.
- Desal depends on multi-million dollar coastal infrastructures
which may be threatened by global climate change and rising
sea levels.
There is a rush to start desal yet there are so many unanswered
questions about how it will affect the ocean, local economies, and
the future of outdated power plants. Time should to address these
issues to prevent damage to fragile ecosystems. Conservation,
water reuse and recycling are the only way to reduce California’s
water needs and return water to struggling ecosystems.