California is in the midst of a horrendous drought. California is also right next to the biggest pool of water in the world, the Pacific Ocean. Is desalination part of the dry state’s solution? From Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider, in The Wall Street Journal, “California Turns To the Ocean for Drinking Water, ” 2/18/15:
It should be the source of last resort—and the reality is we are getting to that place of last resort.
With its local reservoirs at 30 percent of capacity, Santa Barbara is considering updating and reactivating a desalination plant it mothballed 24 years ago. Of course, this is California. From Kira Redmond, executive director of Channelkeeper, an environmental group in Santa Barbara.
We think it’s the stupidest, most environmentally harmful water alternative possible.
The environmental concerns are desalination plants large electricity requirements, and their intake of fish eggs and microorganisms. From another critic, Conner Everts, co-chairman of the Desal Response Group, a nonprofit in Santa Monica:
It would take putting a plant every 2 to 3 miles in Southern California to equal what we get from the mountains.
Make that the water they used to get from the mountains. Droughts can last for decades in that part of the world, and what do Ms. Redmond and Mr. Everts propose as water solutions? No word in the article, but it’s clear that something is going to have to give in California. The alternatives appear to be one or more of the following: desalination plants every 2 to 3 miles (with suitable gaps to preserve the views of the rich, powerful, and beautiful in enclaves like Malibu and Newport Beach), a massive increase in the price of water to ration dwindling supplies; a drastic reduction in the size of California’s agricultural industry (already underway), the largest water user, or a mass exodus of people and industry from California. Better get going on those desalination plants.
