California Gives Desalination Plants a Fresh Look

Process to Make Seawater Drinkable Gains Traction, but Environmentalists Object to Heavy Energy Use, Harm to Marine Life
By SABRINA SHANKMAN

Early next year, the Southern California town of Carlsbad will break ground on a plant that each day will turn 50 million gallons of seawater into fresh drinking water.
The $320 million project, which would be the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere, was held up in the planning stages for years. But a protracted drought helped propel the project to its approval in May -- a sign of how worried local authorities are about water supplies.

Carlsbad Mayor Claude Lewis and other elected officials have dodged environmentalists' objections to city plans to build a desalination plant.
"Water is going to be very short until you have a new source," said Carlsbad Mayor Claude Lewis. "And the only new source is desalination, I don't care what anybody says."
The desalination plant would use water that flows by gravity from the ocean across a manmade lagoon and into the facility through 10 large pumps. The plant would then blast it through a filter, extracting fresh water and leaving behind highly pressurized salty water. The process would provide enough water for 300,000 people each day.
Government agencies have opposed desalination because of the process's energy consumption. The desalination plant would use nearly twice as much energy as a wastewater-treatment plant available in Orange County. Environmental groups also object because fish and other organisms are likely to be sucked into the facility.

"Eventually, people will have to realize, it's either fish or children," Mr. Lewis said.
Desalination is most commonly used in such places as Saudi Arabia and northern Africa, where fresh water is scarce.
But in Southern California, authorities are increasingly desperate. Huntington Beach, in Orange County, is planning to break ground on its own desalination plant in 2010. Another plant is in the works at Camp Pendleton, just north of Carlsbad, in San Diego County.
Since January 2008, Orange County has been using a $487 million groundwater-replenishment plant to recycle 70 million gallons of water each day. The city of Los Angeles is flirting with a plan to do the same.
Even at a time when budgets are strained, authorities are willing to push ahead on costly projects. The Camp Pendleton plant is expected to cost between $1.7 billion and $1.9 billion; the Carlsbad plant will cost less because it is using a pre-existing power plant.
Half of the water in Southern California is imported from two sources: the State Water Project, which draws from the Sacramento River Delta in Northern California, and the Colorado River, which runs along the state's southeast border. Local authorities need to cobble together the rest from groundwater, recycled or surface water, and imports from elsewhere in the state.
But exports from the Colorado River were cut by half -- to nearly 180 billion gallons -- in 2003 because of drought. The levels have risen since then, but now come with a 20% higher price tag. Pumping from the State Water Project has been cut by 40% from 2006 levels.
Scientists and water authorities are pushing for more water recycling, conservation and water-use restrictions, as well as cleaning up the groundwater supply.
But increasingly they are also considering desalination.
"We don't encourage people to put in a desalination plant unless they need one -- unless they don't have any other options," said Lisa Henthorne, president of the International Desalination Association.
Officials in Carlsbad began discussing desalination in 1998 and planned to open the plant this year. But opposition was fierce.
The Surfrider Foundation and San Diego Coastkeeper -- two local environmental groups -- argue the plant would be disastrous for marine life, "killing everything that floats" near the plant's intake, said Surfrider's Joe Geever.
The permitting process continued for six years, and included 14 public hearings that ran a total of 170 hours and included five revisions to the plan.
Throughout the process, Scott Maloni, vice president for Poseidon Resources, which is developing the Carlsbad and Huntington Beach desalination plants, said he kept an eye on the situation. "No doubt that the drought played a role in the approval," he said.
"Hopefully Poseidon will be extremely successful," said Mr. Lewis, the Carlsbad mayor. "If they are, we'll see lots of these kinds of plants popping up all along the coast. If they're not, it's going to be a long road."
Write to Sabrina Shankman at Sabrina.Shankman@wsj.com