The plant is expected to go online early this month after being finished in just six months, unusually fast in California. Projects of this sort typically take years, and often decades, of environmental reviews, public hearings and lawsuits. Dozens of other cities and towns over the years have considered desalination plants as the way out of water shortages. Critics, however, say the technology is expensive, energy intensive and produces huge amounts of brine waste that damages the environment. California has 11 other desalination plants, and another 16 proposed. Citing Brown's drought declaration, San Luis Obispo County and local Cambria officials...