Desalination still on back burner for Marin after votes

Not coming to a tap near you soon: desalinated water. 

Despite voters’ approval this month of Marin Municipal Water District incumbent candidates who supported studying desalination, and a ballot measure to allow that study to happen, the reality of taking bay water and de-salting it for domestic use in Marin remains murky. 

“What we said from the beginning of the campaign is that desalination is not on the table because of current demand patterns,” said David Behar, the water board president who won reelection. “That has not changed.”

In April the water board voted to suspend further investigation of a desalination plant until it can get a better handle on declining water demand. 

Water usage in the county continues to stay low: it has dropped 15 percent in the past two years. An extended rainy season, combined with conservation, have helped lessen the demand.

The struggling economy also means less office space is being used and fewer homes are occupied, which has led to a high number of water accounts that show zero water use.

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Oceanside hopes to produce more of its own water thru desalination

Plans to make Oceanside less dependent on costly imported water by expanding the city’s desalination program have taken on a new urgency as city officials warn of ongoing water-rate increases. 

A consultant hired by the city three years ago has completed a report recommending that Oceanside proceed with the next step toward expanding its desalination operations with a goal of providing up to half of the city’s water needs from local sources, said water utilities director Cari Dale. 

“The importance of local supplies is going to be thrust into the forefront,” Dale said. 

The City Council earlier this month put off making a decision on a proposal that would raise combined water and sewer rates for a typical homeowner from $96.30 a month to $104.14 starting in early 2011 and to $112.38 a month in July. The council will reconsider the increases Dec. 8. 

Meanwhile, water officials said more increases are likely to follow because the Metropolitan Water District is raising the price of the water it sells the San Diego Water Authority, the regional agency that in turn sells water to Oceanside and other cities and water agencies.

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Binational desalination plans heat up

Officials considering whether to build four desalination plants between Rosarito Beach and Ensenada

With scarce rainfall and increasing competition for water from the Colorado River, Baja California faces many of the same challenges as Southern California as it strives to meet the needs of a swelling population.

Now water managers are considering whether to build four desalination plants along the Pacific Ocean corridor that spans Rosarito Beach to Ensenada. Two of the proposals are binational ventures — one private, the other public — that would pipe a portion of the processed seawater to users in San Diego County.

The private project has been moving forward quickly in recent months as developers explore the possibility of a reverse-osmosis facility in Rosarito Beach with an initial capacity of 50 million gallons daily. That would be as large as the Poseidon plant scheduled for operations in Carlsbad.

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Monterey area looks to sea for drinking water

By the end of 2014, most people on the Monterey Peninsula are likely to fill their glasses with water siphoned from the ocean and stripped of salt.

If switching from a predominantly freshwater-fed system to a sea-fed system within four years seems aggressive – well, it is. But water utilities in the area don’t have much choice.

In the wake of a November “cease and desist” order by state regulators requiring Monterey County’s main water purveyor to slash its diversions from the Carmel River 70 percent by 2016, an ambitious regional desalination project has emerged as the best – and arguably only – way to slake the thirst of about 100,000 customers on the peninsula.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/04/BABQ1E83RF.DTL#ixzz0spHJJrU2

Desalination Nation

As a native Bostonian now living in New York, I became a little obsessed with the May 1 break in a massive water pipeline that serves many of the communities surrounding my old home . I called my family for important updates – Are you boiling your water? Are any coffee shops still open? – and rued the incredibly poor timing of a just days-old ban on the sale of bottled water in a suburban Boston town.

But as the emergency wore on, I thought that, as inconvenient as the break was, the nearly 2 million people affected by it all knew that the annoyances were temporary. Drinking water was still relatively plentiful in Massachusetts and a little bit of engineering would repair the pipeline and bring life back to normal in a matter of days.

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Desalination Plant Heads to Public Hearings

MONTEREY, Calif. — Water — or lack of it — has been a big issue for residents on the Monterey Peninsula.  This week, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is looking for your input on a proposed seawater desalination plant north of Marina.

“We have such an immediate need for getting additional water here,” commented Marina resident Kevin Miller. 

That’s the driving force behind California American Water’s proposal for the plant.  They are following state orders to reduce demand on the Carmel River. 

Monterey resident Mike Casey said, “The resources are diminishing and I don’t see any other alternatives at this time.”

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San Diego County Water Authority to explore doing desalination deal

The San Diego County Water Authority’s board agreed Thursday to consider striking its own deal to buy desalinated water from Poseidon Resources Corp.

The vote authorized Water Authority staffers to talk with Poseidon, which plans to build a desalination plant in coastal Carlsbad.

Poseidon already has an agreement with nine local water agencies, but it has stalled on financing problems.

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Marin County desalination plan may face vote

Foes of Marin County’s contentious plan to turn seawater into drinking water said Thursday they have collected more than enough signatures to force a public vote on the multimillion-dollar facility.

The conservation group Food and Water Watch delivered 17,000 signatures – about 6,000 more than needed – to the county registrar’s office supporting what they are calling the Marin Responsible Water Policy Initiative.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/03/BAVL1DPH1K.DTL#ixzz0puG4z9r2

US government funding desalination research

Funding for research and laboratory studies, pilot-scale projects and demonstration projects in desalination and water purification is to be made available by the US federal Bureau of Reclamation.

The bureau announced on 25 May 2010 that it anticipated awarding a total of up to US$ 1 million under this funding opportunity made available by the Desalination & Water Purification Research & Development Program.

Through this program, Reclamation is partnering with private industry, universities, water utilities and others to address a broad range of desalting and water purification needs.

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Poseidon’s Desalinization Plant: Dream Water Supply or Drain on the Pacific and Taxpayers?

By Janet Wilson 

CARLSBAD, California, May 17, 2010 (ENS) – High on a hill above this sunny beach town sits a reservoir filled with water pumped from hundreds of miles away. But the price of that imported water is soaring, and supplies are shrinking. Local officials see salvation to the west – a huge new desalination plant that would turn 300 million gallons a day of the sparkling Pacific Ocean into a new, 50 million gallon river of drinking water

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Desalination project cost model advances

By JIM JOHNSON
Herald Salinas Bureau

SAN FRANCISCO — Proponents and critics of a proposed desalination project for the Peninsula on Wednesday agreed to a model for judging costs for the project.

The agreement capped off a three-day workshop that focused on the cost of the project, and it earned praise from state Public Utilities Commission representatives in charge of the workshops.

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Borden: Reject the Huntington Beach desal plant myths

Until we are turning salt water into fresh down in the AES desalinization plant, there will be a continuing flow of opposition against the project and the 10 City Council candidates who apparently favor it. Already, the antis are plotting to defeat those in favor and elect those opposed. As usual, they reject a sensible plan without offering one of their own. We’ll hear all kinds of outrageous claims between now and November…

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Yuma Desalting Plant Starts Pilot Run Monday

The Bureau of Reclamation says Arizona has been struggling to keep its Colorado River reservoirs full. Monday, the Bureau of Reclamation will start running the Yuma Desalting Plant at one-third capacity for a year-long pilot run. It will be testing the technology and gathering data to see if it will be cost-beneficial. Its been 17 years since the plant has been fully operational.

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Power: Hybrid Plants: Adding Desalination to Solar Hybrid and Fossil Plants

Shrinking water supplies will unquestionably constrain the development of future power plants. A hybrid system consisting of concentrated solar thermal power and desalination to produce water for a plant, integrated with a combined cycle or conventional steam plant, may be the simple solution.

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UA-Led Team Studies Effect of Yuma Desalting Plant on Cienega de Santa Clara

A binational team is studying whether running the Yuma Desalting Plant will affect Mexico’s Cienega de Santa Clara, the largest wetland on the Colorado River Delta.

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Spectra ups desalination efficiency

SAN RAFAEL –  Spectrawatermakers has moved solar-powered desalination a major step forward with a new, super-efficient energy-recovery pump.

The Pearson Pump is a major innovation from a company whose first reverse-osmosis, solar- and wind-powered desalination product has led the market in efficiency for the last 15 years.

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Researchers Develop Energy-Saving Breakthrough For Desalination

Salt mounds in Bolivia

When environmental engineer David Drew read about an amazing new method of removing salt from seawater, he embarked on a search for research institutions to collaborate with on this kind of technology.

He didn’t have to go very far to find one.

Zhen “Jason” He, an assistant professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (UWM), was working on just such a project only a few miles from the Cedarburg office of Gannett Fleming Inc., the international engineering consulting firm Drew works for.

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