San Diego advances plan to recycle wastewater

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By ELLIOT SPAGAT

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The San Diego City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to advance a $2.5-billion plan to reuse wastewater for drinking, the latest example of how California cities are looking for new supplies amid a severe drought.

The plan calls to initially recycle 15 million gallons by 2023 and 83 million gallons a day by 2035, about one-third of the city's water supply. It enjoys broad support from Mayor Kevin Faulconer, business groups and environmental advocates.

The Orange County Water District, which serves 2.4 million people in California, plans to boost production of recycled water next year from 70 million gallons to 100 million gallons a day. It has reused wastewater for drinking since 2008 through treatment that includes sending water through ground basins.

The Santa Clara Valley Water District, which serves 1.8 million people in the San Francisco Bay area, decided in September to pursue construction of facilities that it says could lead to turning wastewater into drinking water for Sunnyvale and western Santa Clara County.

FULL story at link.




Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20141119/us-recycled-water-27fa42076c.html

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Would it be cheaper to build an ocean water to drinking water plant?

[Journeyman]

1. The energy needs and environmental impact of desalinization are prohibitive . . .

Its promise comes with a host of endemic problems and concerns.

The need for massive amounts of energy to drive it, the ravages to oceanic life and the coastal impact from the intake, the seemingly intractable problem of saline disposal, and the ever-present issue of funding for construction and maintenance (witness the near-criminal response the plant at Huntington Beach, California has generated, what with the proposed requirement that participating water districts must pay for their full allotment of water no matter whether they need it or not in any given year).

The Pacific Institute has an informative report on the topic:

Desalination, With a Grain of Salt: A California Perspective

available for free download from the Institute's website:

http://pacinst.org/publication/desalination-with-a-grain-of-salt-a-california-perspective-2/

In Desalination, With a Grain of Salt – A California Perspective, the Pacific Institute provides a comprehensive overview of the history, benefits, and risks of ocean desalination, and the barriers that hinder more widespread use of this technology, especially in the context of recent proposals for a massive increase in desalination development in California. Long considered the Holy Grail of water supply, desalination offers the potential of an unlimited source of fresh water purified from the vast oceans of salt water that surround us. The public, politicians, and water managers continue to hope that cost-effective and environmentally safe ocean desalination will come to the rescue of water-short regions. While seawater desalination plants are already vital for economic development in many arid and water-short areas of the world, many plants are overly expensive, inaccurately promoted, poorly designed, inappropriately sited, and ultimately useless. To avoid new, expensive errors, policymakers and the public need to take a careful look at the advantages and disadvantages of desalination and develop clear guidance on how to evaluate and judge proposals for new facilities.

The potential benefits of ocean desalination are great, but the economic, cultural, and environmental costs of wide commercialization remain high. In many parts of the world, alternatives can provide the same freshwater benefits of ocean desalination at far lower economic and environmental costs. These alternatives include treating low-quality local water sources, encouraging regional water transfers, improving conservation and efficiency, accelerating wastewater recycling and reuse, and implementing smart land-use planning.

while UC Berkley hosted the author of the report, Heather Cooley, which the University posted to YouTube as part of its "California Colloquium on Water":

[LeftInTX]

5. Yep...I'm from droughty parts myself

[C Moon]

2. As an Angelean (Los Angeles resident), I was hoping for rain in November after all the predictions

of an El Niño this year (because of the warm ocean).
This is bad.
A repeat of last year with all the storms staying well north and south of us.

[NYC_SKP]

3. NO NO NO NO, Desalination plants are NOT the answer, Omaha Steve.

I can see it's going to be an uphill battle.



Reprocessing waste water is THE RIGHT THING TO DO!

It prevents foul water from going into the environment and it's energy efficient, some water treatment plants even GENERATE energy.

Desalination plants, on the other hand, USE TONS OF ELECTRICITY.

I just came back from a trip to one, to the Poseidon Desalination Plant in Carlsbad.

At a cost of $1,000,000,000, or one BILLION, it will use tons of electricity, I don't have the figures handy but it's built right next door to a POWER PLANT for a reason.

Now we are down one Nuke plant in this state and people living where there is no natural water and have to buy it from up north want to start using natural gas to make electricity so they can continue to water their fucking lawns and golf courses and take long showers and wash their cars.

No, reprocessing water is the right thing to do.

And desal plants are going to promote less conservation and more growth, growth that we can't afford to allow.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. No, not yet. But...

a lot of people are working on it, including California:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination

A January 17, 2008, article in the Wall Street Journal stated, "In November, Connecticut-based Poseidon Resources Corp. won a key regulatory approval to build the $300 million water-desalination plant in Carlsbad, north of San Diego. The facility would produce 50,000,000 US gallons (190,000,000 l; 42,000,000 imp gal) of drinking water per day, enough to supply about 100,000 homes ... Improved technology has cut the cost of desalination in half in the past decade, making it more competitive ... Poseidon plans to sell the water for about $950 per acre-foot [1,200 cubic meters (42,000 cu ft)]. That compares with an average [of] $700 an acre-foot [1200 m³] that local agencies now pay for water."[35] In June 2012, new estimates were released that showed the cost to the water authority had risen to $2,329 per acre-foot.[36] Each $1,000 per acre-foot works out to $3.06 for 1,000 gallons, or $.81 per cubic meter.[37]

While this regulatory hurdle was met, Poseidon Resources is not able to break ground until the final approval of a mitigation project for the damage done to marine life through the intake pipe is received, as required by California law. Poseidon Resources has made progress in Carlsbad, despite an unsuccessful attempt to complete construction of Tampa Bay Desal, a desalination plant in Tampa Bay, FL, in 2001. The Board of Directors of Tampa Bay Water was forced to buy Tampa Bay Desal from Poseidon Resources in 2001 to prevent a third failure of the project. Tampa Bay Water faced five years of engineering problems and operation at 20% capacity to protect marine life, so stuck to reverse osmosis filters prior to fully using this facility in 2007.[38]

In 2008, a San Leandro, California company (Energy Recovery Inc.) was desalinating water for $0.46 per cubic meter.[39]

While desalinating 1,000 US gallons (3,800 l; 830 imp gal) of water can cost as much as $3, the same amount of bottled water costs $7,945.[40]

[SoapBox]

6. All I can say is...

Ewhhhh.

And in this case, I don't care what any one says.

Too close to, Soylent Green is People!

[LeftyMom]

7. It's not cheaper to build ANYTHING on the coast.

Between the coastal commission process and the inevitable lawsuits, if you got the plans done now you might be able to get the thing going in 2040. And desalination is already a hideously expensive option.

And buying a big enough chunk of coast in San Diego would be an enormous expense as well, assuming a large enough available parcel in a suitable spot even exists, which is not really something I'd assume.

[DeSwiss]

8. ''Would it be cheaper to build an ocean water to drinking water plant?''

- Or, something.

[Orsino]

9. It's got electrolytes! n/t

[Brother Buzz]

10. Perhaps San Diego could repurpose the idled....

San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station to make water

[JDPriestly]

11. There is a military base along the ocean there. I pass through on the train almost every week

a couple of times.

Desalination may be prohibitively expensive now. But then my husband used to work on the old computers that were made of tubes. Working together and encouraging people who have ingenuity and understand the science, mechanics and technology necessary, we can desalinate water for a reasonable price.

We are already recycling waste water in Los Angeles.

[Brother Buzz]

12. San Onofre is actually on land leased from the Navy

I really, really need to learn to use that sarcasm thingy, I just assumed the 'hide' smiley covered my snark sufficiently. Sorry.

The Irvine Company, to their credit, has been championing recycling water in Southern California for almost fifty years. I had the pleasure of reviewing many of the projects plans for engineering buddy many years ago. Slick