Water desalination is on town's plate

The Patriot Ledger ^ | Saturday, January 17, 2004 | JESSICA FARGEN

[Willie Green]

BRAINTREE - The Braintree Electric Light Department has its hands in electricity, cable and the Internet.

Now it's thinking about water.

The town's own light department, started more than 100 years ago by Thomas Watson, is investigating the possibility of building a desalination plant on its Fore River power plant property.

[Willie Green]

Concern over fresh water supply is becoming increasingly common in our nation due to pressures from drought and population growth. Our coastal states are frequently evaluating the viability of desalination systems to provide their fresh water needs. Desalination is an energy intensive process, so it is quite common for these facilities to be built in close proximity to electric power plants. For this reason, it is also reasonable to consider the use of nuclear desalination as a potential option.

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In an odd way, I suppose Ted Kennedy's opposition to offshore windfarms in this region is a step in the right direction. But I still can't picture him ever supporting the most sensible infrastructure for the Northeast Corridor: Nuclear power, desalination and electricly powered mass transit such as high-speed rail and Maglev.

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.

Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

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If this is taxes with reprsentation
Give me taxes without representation
I much prefer a tax on tea!
Instead of everything else.

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[subrosa sam]

Willie,
For some reason you felt impelled to post this article but forgot to tell us where in the hell is Braintree?

[Willie Green]

"The Patriot Ledger" is in Quincy, Massachusettes, so I assume Braintree must be somewhere nearby. That's why I included that state in the topics list, anyway.

[mewzilla]

Braintree's south of Boston and Quincy (which is famous for being John Adams' birthplace).

[MichaelDammit]

Unbelievable.....RO is great for potable water, but ludicrous for just desalinating everything that will end up being used for irrigation and washing your cars....

[Willie Green]

RO is great for potable water, but ludicrous for just desalinating everything that will end up being used for irrigation and washing your cars....

Yeah, well I imagine population density in the region must be such that a single-solution panacea won't work. And a multi-faceted approach (of which desalination is a part) is a more realistic (albeit complex) to addressing water supply issues.

Although they have their use in emergency situations, I don't particulary care for regulatory water use restrictions. (low-flush toilets, only being allowed to wash your car or water your lawn on certain days, etc. etc.) Instead, I focus on promoting the mundane infrastructure necessary to assure adequate supply. Yeah, it costs money. But in turn, you get long term infrastructure that benefits the public for decades (even though most people just take it for granted that it'll *always* be there.) The mix of solutions depends on the specific situation of each community, of course. But building desalination plants, dams, reservoirs, waste-water treatment plants, replacing antiquated pipelines, etc. etc. are necessary projects that we have to address sooner or later. IMHO, it's better to address them sooner rather than be confronted with shortages.

[MichaelDammit]

Maybe its time to start thinking retrofit of parallel systems for drinking vs. irrigation water....we do have some of that out here in the West....Uunfortunately this will only get worse as more and more aquifers are drawn down.....I do agree with you about capacity though....more reservoirs is GOOD.

[Willie Green]

Greywater recycling systems make sense in a number of areas.
But I have absolutely no idea how it would work in densely populated urban communities,
most of what I've read about is applicable to individual homeowners and locations in more rural regions.
But perhaps there are variations of the concept that I'm unaware of.