Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
Facing an ongoing drought and the very real possibility that the state could eventually run out of water, California lawmakers on Wednesday approved the first statewide regulations allowing for the use of seawater desalination projects, various media outlets are reporting.
According to Discovery News, California communities have already had to cut their water use by one-fourth, causing the state to act “aggressively” to implement potential long-term solutions to the state’s ongoing H2O woes.
By passing statewide standards for the construction of desalination plants, the California State Water Resources Control Board has cleared the way for facilities to take water from the Pacific Ocean, treat it, and make it suitable for drinking and other purposes.
The decision allows regional water councils to build and operate new desalination plants, as well as expand existing ones, the website added. The move was said to be welcomed by developed of projects like the Carlsbad Desalination Project, an ongoing effort to build a billion-dollar facility near San Diego that is expected to provide 50 million gallons of fresh water per day.
Legislation seeks to limit potential damage to marine life
Under the new rules, local water boards will be in charge of approving or denying permits for desalination plants, but according to Reuters, regional decisions could be appealed to the state board if opponents of a project believed that one was wrongly approved. It will also establish a uniform set of standards for minimizing the impact on marine life, they added.
Scott Maloni, an executive with Poseidon Water (which is working on the Carlsbad project and a second proposed plant in Huntington Beach) explained to the news organization that the decision “reaffirms that the Pacific Ocean is part of the drinking water resources” for the state.
California currently uses a series of small-scale desalination plants, including one built in 1991 on Santa Catalina Island that provides nearly 90 percent of the drinking water for that offshore community. The Carlsbad plant would be the largest facility of its kind in the Western Hemisphere and is currently scheduled to open in November.
Critics of the program are worried that the plants’ intake pipes could harm marine life and that brine discharged from the facilities could damage ecosystems. The new plan establishes specific brine salinity limits, Reuters said. It also requires seawater to be collected using pipes embedded into beach wells or buried beneath the sea floor whenever possible, they added.
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