Finally Water Flows
- The Carlsbad project endured 14 lawsuits and more than a decade of negotiations and red tape before Poseidon could break ground. Construction took three years.
- Meanwhile most of California ignores desalination and prays for rain as the solution.
(Miami Herald) - 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.
A giant water desalination plant will open this week north of San Diego, tucked behind a power plant across the street from Tamarack State Beach. It will produce 50 million gallons of fresh water each day, meeting 7 percent to 10 percent of the San Diego County Water Authority’s demands and buffering the region against supply shortages for decades to come.
Oh, and it will be expensive – ridiculously so, in the minds of some critics. Built by privately owned Poseidon Water of Boston for $1 billion, the plant will deliver some of the priciest water found anywhere in California. It will cost twice as much as the water San Diego gets from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which provides the bulk of San Diego’s supplies.
Yet San Diego officials say the Carlsbad project, representing a comparatively small slice of its overall water supply, will add only a few dollars a month to customer bills. Besides, with Metropolitan’s prices relentlessly rising, San Diego officials say desalination eventually will become competitive with the region’s other water sources.
What’s happening in Carlsbad could have implications for statewide water policy. The first major desalination facility built in California and the largest in the Western Hemisphere, it could establish desalination as a potentially major tool in solving the state’s long-term water stress.
“I think we’ve blazed a trail,” said Sandy Kerl, deputy general manager of the San Diego water authority. “It’s being watched with a lot of interest.”
The public will get its first glimpse at the grand opening Monday. Commercial operations will start later this month, with the arrival of the first flows of desalinated water at the authority’s aqueduct 10 miles inland. It marks a pivotal moment in a journey that began 15 years ago, when the plant was initially proposed.
“If it’s successful, as I believe it will be, others will follow,” said Peter MacLaggan, the Poseidon vice president overseeing Carlsbad.
No comments:
Post a Comment