California could be facing a dry summer after two dry winters, but there shouldn’t be a huge impact on local supplies.
California water officials have already cut in half the amount of water they expect to deliver from the state water project.
That could be a major cut for central valley farmers and other water users that rely heavily on the Sacramento Delta for their water.
NRG Energy began demolition of the 400-foot Encina Power Station stack this week. The apparatus mounted around the top of the stack, known as the Mende Spider, is equipped with a jackhammer that breaks the concrete in a cylindrical pattern; the pieces of the stack fall through the center of the stack and are recovered from the bottom. NRG estimates the device will remove the stack about 10 feet per day. At this rate, NRG anticipates removing the top 350 feet of the Encina stack by the end of April. The remaining 50 feet will be removed from the ground by an excavator.
All three major rating agencies – S&P, Moody’s, and Fitch – have affirmed the San Diego County Water Authority’s strong credit ratings, which will help the Water Authority optimize its debt portfolio and minimize the cost of financing important water reliability projects.
Every time someone turns on the tap in San Diego County, out flows the work of Peter MacLaggan.
MacLaggan was the point man in the construction of the Carlsbad desalination plant, a nearly $1 billion public-private partnership that since 2015 has supplied nearly 10 percent of the potable water consumed in the county.
Desalination relies on the virtually unlimited supply of water in the Pacific Ocean. It provides a safe, reliable source of local water in a region that for many years relied on supplies from hundreds of miles away and was subject to mechanical breakdowns, seasonal shortages and the whims of nature.
Often the value of a plan or project can best be judged by its opposition. In the case of the proposed Poseidon desalination plant in Huntington Beach, the forces lined up against it are clear indicators that it’s a worthwhile enterprise.
When Gov. Gavin Newsom was photographed dining at an opulent Napa Valley restaurant during a surge in coronavirus cases, many Californians saw it as hypocrisy. For opponents of a planned $1-billion desalination plant along the Orange County coast, however, the optics were menacing.
The unmasked Newsom was celebrating the birthday of a lobbyist for Poseidon Water, which is close to obtaining final government approval for one of the country’s biggest seawater desalination plants.
Heavy equipment will dominate a stretch of Carlsbad’s beach near the old Encina Power Plant for the next month.
Crews are funneling thousands of cubic yards of sand per day onto the beach, not only to protect the shoreline, but also the water supply.
Poseidon Water, which runs the desalination plant adjacent to the old power plant is running the project. The desalination plant converts 50 million gallons of ocean water to drinking water per day, providing 10 percent of the region’s water supply.
It is no secret that I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant when it was proposed, and I still wasn’t completely on board when the plant began operations in 2015, or even when I was elected to the Carlsbad City Council in 2016.
But time has given me perspective, and I recognize now that the value that the Carlsbad Desalination Plant provides our region is undeniable.
We are now celebrating the plant’s fifth anniversary since operations began. In that time, I’ve seen firsthand how the Carlsbad Desalination Plant benefits our city and the entire San Diego region, given it has produced more than 65 billion gallons of high-quality drinking water. To put that in perspective, that is enough water to fill the Rose Bowl in Pasadena all the way to its brim nearly 200 times!
Removing salt from seawater to make it safe to drink means overcoming a number of scientific challenges, including optimizing the membrane used for the desalination process – and new research into these membranes promises to make the whole operation cheaper and more accessible in the future.
The Water News Network top stories of 2020 reflect the San Diego region’s interest in water conservation, the environment and efforts to diversify water supply sources. But the year was dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, which impacted water infrastructure and operations.
