Calif. Studies Making Sea Water Drinkable

Netscape/CNN/AP ^ | 1/13/03 | LAURA WIDES

[Weimdog]

LOS ANGELES (AP) - California's epic quest for water, made more pressing by a Western drought and a cutback in the Colorado River supply, is turning toward what many see as an obvious source: the Pacific Ocean.

For the most part, desalination has long been prohibitively expensive as a source of drinking water in California. But rising demand, dwindling supply, and new technology that makes it cheaper to take the salt out of sea water are changing the economics of desalination.

``It is expensive, but it's not something of the other world anymore,'' said Adan Ortega, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves 18 million customers.

[Weimdog]

Quit talking about it and get to work.

[mhking]

Water, water everywhere...

[mhking]

"Hold muh beer 'n watch this!" PING....

If you want on or off this list, please let me know!

[Consort]

What happened to the "Toilet-to-Tap" Project?

[goldstategop]

More wacky news from the Left Coast.

[Anti-Bubba182]

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[Centurion2000]

They're going to freak when they get to the "it takes a nuclear power plant' phase of the engineering.

[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.

[patricia]

Desalination of water has been used in QATAR for years!!!

[gonzo]

dog, they just turned-on the de-salinization plant here in the Tampa Bay area, and once again, politics wins over engineering.

They're dumping the effluent into the Bay, instead of the Gulf of Mexico.

It'll take between 4 to 10 years to kill every-living-thing in the Bay except the damned barnacles. I'm glad I live on the Gulf side............FRegards

[nunya bidness]

And I just read about how TB was making a comeback too.

Down here in Pine Island the desal is running like a clock. And has been for some time.

[Plutarch]

The five plants are expected to cost between $70 million and $300 million each...Critics say that desalination remains too expensive...The state's population is expected to grow by 6 million by 2010.

If the state's additional population were productive, then the additional cost of the water could be easily borne. In reality, the makeup of the additional population is such that that they will consume more of the treasury than they produce in revenue. Those now pulling the cart in California will be have to carry desalinated water for the Dems imported voters as well.

[farmfriend]

Just about any article out of California qualifies for the hold muh beer list these days.

[dvan]

Wow! There goes the ocean! Where is the EPA and Green Peace on this issue?

[tubebender]

The Humboldt Bay region has water rights to the Mad River with Raney collection wells sunk deep in the river bed. There is a dam about 70 miles forming Ruth Lake. At one time there were two pulp mills on the bay using lots of water. One shut down and the other one went chlorine free and uses less water so the water district has a surplus. Some firm from Alaska wants to buy the water and ship it to San Diego in rubber bladders towed by tugs. Each bag will hold 30,000,000 gallons. It would bring jobs to the area such as tug crews, plant personnel and a site to manufacture the bags

[martin_fierro]

I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it.

-- W. C. Fields

[Straight Vermonter]

Since the late 1980s, the price of taking salt out of sea water has dropped from nearly $2,000 an acre-foot to $800 per acre-foot, (snip) MWD currently sells water for nearly half that cost, but Ortega said the district would subsidize the price of desalinated water by $250 per acre-foot for the proposed plants in Carlsbad, Los Angeles, Long Beach, El Segundo and Dana Point.

While the water drawn from the Colorado etc is being SOLD at half the price I wonder what the COST of it is when the cost of the the enormous water works, aquaducts etc are calculated.

[gonzo]

"...Down here in Pine Island the desal is running like a clock. And has been for some time..."

De-Sal is a great idea, and is fairly cheap, but ya gotta dump the salt into a big ocean! Tampa Bay doesn't get much flow-through because we're using most of the natural water, and the Bay doesn't get rinsed.

I ain't likely to be a 'Greenie', pal. I just wish we had done it with more smarts and less politics. It's the curse of being an engineer, I guess, but I'm goin' fishin' in the Gulf, now - fuck-em! Stay well, pally............Barry/gonzo