Were San Diego on its own, there wouldn’t be enough water to go around. Only about 5 percent of urban San Diego’s water comes from local rainfall, an almost meaningless amount that wouldn’t support our region’s 3 million residents.
In a 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 money, announced this week and awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy, will fund a research consortium of 19 universities around that the country that include Stanford, UC-Berkeley, UCLA and others, along with 10 private industry partners and other Department of Energy institutions, like Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee.
The goal, organizers say, is to reduce the cost of removing salt from ocean water to make it a more viable drinking water source for California and other areas. Closely related, planners also hope to clean up other types of water that are being largely wasted or underused so they can be a source for cities, farms and wildlife.
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. On Thursday, Marina Coast filed suit in Monterey County Superior Court seeking to halt the start of construction on the desal plant project through a writ of mandate and injunctive relief. The suit asks the court to order the county to rescind its approval of a combined development permit for the project until full compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act, water code, and planning and zoning law.
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. Reservoirs are brimming. Instead of desperately seeking new sources of water, Californians were moaning about the billions of excess gallons that washed into the Pacific Ocean and the San Francisco Bay. Depleted aquifers began their path to replenishment, too, with snow levels in the water-producing Sierra Nevada Mountains far above normal.
As populations boom and chronic droughts persist, coastal cities like Carlsbad in Southern California have increasingly turned to ocean desalination to supplement a dwindling fresh water supply. Now 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. Ionic liquids are a liquid salt that binds to water, making them useful in forward osmosis to separate contaminants from water.
The Sweetwater Authority Governing Board was presented with the Southwest Membrane Operators Association (SWMOA) ‘Best Tasting Membrane Water in the Southwest Region Award’ at its July 24 board meeting.
The award recognizes the Authority’s Richard A. Reynolds Desalination Facility as the winner of the Best Tasting Membrane Water Competition held during the SWMOA Annual Symposium in June.
The winning water sample was taken directly from the Richard A. Reynolds Desalination Facility, the same water provided to its customers. Judges based their assessment on the following criteria: taste, odor, color, clarity, mouthfeel, and aftertaste.
Among the participants in the competition representing water agencies from the Southwest United States, the Authority received the highest cumulative score.
The Richard A. Reynolds Desalination Facility is a state-of-the-art groundwater desalination facility Photo: Sweetwater Authority
The Richard A. Reynolds Desalination Facility in Chula Vista is a state-of-the-art groundwater desalination facility designed to use reverse-osmosis membrane treatment to remove dissolved salts and microscopic particles, such as bacteria and other contaminants which can be found in groundwater. The facility can produce up to 10 million gallons of drinking water per day, enough for approximately 18,000 families, and provides Authority customers with about one-third of their annual water supply.
The facility began operating in 1999 drawing brackish groundwater from five wells. That same year, the facility was honored with a San Diego Orchid award in the competition’s environmental solutions category. Its phase two expansion was completed in 2017.
The facility’s sustainable design also includes 2,950 ground-mounted solar PV panels as an alternative energy source. The solar array offsets the cost of treating water and reduces the facility’s overall carbon footprint.
The facility was previously honored with the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Project of the Year award, as well as the South County Economic Development Council’s Corky McMillin/Best of South County Award.
Among the participants in the competition representing water agencies from the Southwest region of the country, Sweetwater Authority received the highest cumulative score. Photo: Sweetwater Authority
The Southwest Membrane Operator Association is an affiliate of the American Membrane Technology Association and dedicated to the Southwest United States region including, but not limited to Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah.
The small South Coast Water District has taken key steps toward construction of a $110 million desalination plant, but the agency faces growing questions of whether it’s in over its head for the ambitious project to be built near Doheny State Beach. 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.
There is an obvious connection between the proposed multibillion-dollar Sacramento Delta Water Tunnels, the proposed mining/pumping of water from the Mojave Desert, Central Valley farmers lacking the water resources to maximize food production, and the Sacramento River and fishing stocks suffering from inadequate water flows. That connection is the State Water Project, which pumps water to Southern California and reduces the river water needed for fisheries, farmers, and the river itself. The reality is Southern California needs water and if we don’t produce it here, then we’re going to take it anywhere we can find it, regardless of environmental damage and economic considerations.
A Coastal Commission hearing on whether California American Water and others can appeal the Marina city denial of a key permit for the proposed desalination project is set for July 11 in San Luis Obispo. 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 proposed for the CEMEX sand mining plant, and segments of a source water pipeline to the desal plant and transmission main pipeline from the desal plant located inside both the city’s jurisdiction and the Coastal Zone under the Coastal Commission’s jurisdiction.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) announced they will provide a $10 million grant to public utility, California American Water. The grant money is destined to help build the seawater desalination component of the Peninsula Water Supply Project. “We are extremely grateful to DWR for supporting our project,” said California American Water president Rich Svindland. The Monterey Peninsula Water Supply Project is a $329 million project featuring a portfolio of water supply components to address the area’s water needs. Since 2005, DWR has completed three rounds of funding using Proposition 50 funds.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
