Can Desalination Be a Solution for Drought in SoCal?

California is currently suffering through its worst drought in over 1,200 years, a fact painfully illustrated by a hot, dry summer, nearly empty reservoirs, and a historically diminished Colorado River. New water restrictions have gone into effect across the state. As California scrambles to conserve water, desalination plants, facilities that use reverse osmosis filters to purify seawater and transform it into drinking water, have increasingly become part of the discussion.

There are 12 coastal desalination plants currently operating in California with 5 more currently underway or under consideration by the State Water Board staff. Proponents say that as climate change continues to exacerbate the drought, the best way to permanently secure enough water for California is to build many more plants. However, desalination plants are controversial; in Southern California, where beaches are a source of pleasure and revenue, they can be perceived as an industrial blight on the landscape.

Aside from aesthetic concerns, desalination plants suck in vast quantities of seawater and expel a super-salty brine. Environmentalists argue that desalination plants destroy marine life and harm environments already suffering from the effects of climate change. Further, desalination plants are energy-intensive, and since they rely on fossil fuels, they contribute to global warming.

From a local taxpayer’s perspective, water from desalination plants can be more expensive than water from other sources. According to a Pacific Institute study desalination can cost three times as much as projects designed to capture rainwater, most of which currently flows into the Pacific.

Poseidon Water Plant Denied Approval

The largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere is Poseidon Water’s Claude Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant in Carlsbad, CA which produces 50 million gallons of desalinated drinking water a day. Over the past 22 years, Poseidon invested 100 million dollars into an effort to build another similar desalination plant in Huntington Beach, CA.

The company recently experienced a game-ending defeat when the California Coastal Commission denied approval for what would have been the final regulatory hurdle for the proposed 1.4-billion-dollar Huntington Beach plant. Despite the fact that the proposed plant enjoyed powerful political support from Governor Newsom, Huntington Beach Mayor Barbara Delgleize, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and many other California politicians, the 12-member panel made a unanimous decision to withhold its approval, a move some experts found surprising and one which might signal future challenges for California desalination projects.

"I think the Coastal Commission was firing a shot over the bow of the [desalination] industry by saying ‘we will look at a large suite of social and economic as well as environmental issues before licensing a desalinization plant’," said David L. Feldman, a professor of Urban Planning at University of California, Irvine and the director of Water UCI.

The Coastal Commission had numerous concerns about the Huntington Beach desalination plant ranging from its vulnerabilities to sea-level rise, to negative impacts on the marine environment, to increased water costs to ratepayers. Although Poseidon has the option of appealing the decision, Jessica Jones, Poseidon’s Director of Communications, said they will not pursue this course.

"We will not be appealing the Coastal Commission's decision for the Huntington Beach site," said Jones. "We're looking forward to other opportunities and other public/private partnerships throughout the state."

In his closing statement at the commission meeting, Jack Ainsworth, the Executive Director of the Coastal Commission said Poseidon Water’s Huntington Beach plant was "the wrong project, in the wrong place, at the wrong time." However, Ainsworth has left the door open to future desalination efforts that are more compliant with California’s state regulations.

"Desalination is and will continue to be part of our current and future water portfolio as this historic drought continues to worsen," said Ainsworth via email. "The Coastal Commission has approved coastal desal plants in the past and will continue to support those that comply with the law."

A Future for Desalination at Dana Point

During his closing statement at the meeting where the Huntington Beach plant was rejected, Ainsworth mentioned a proposed new desalination plant in Dana Point, CA known as the Doheny Ocean Desalination Project. Unlike the proposed privately-operated plant at Huntington Beach, the Dana Point facility will be built and operated by the local water utility, theSouth Coast Water District. The plant will address environmental concerns by employing slant wells that draw seawater in through the sandy sea floor, minimizing the impact on marine life, especially when compared to the direct intakes used at other desalination plants.

Proponents of the plant point to the fact that, unlike Huntington Beach, the Dana Point district lacks a large aquifer. Since the district does very little water reclamation it’s almost completely dependent on imported water from the drought-stricken Colorado River. In the case of an earthquake or other disaster, a pipeline failure could leave the district without any water at all.

"The need for desalination is so significant here because of the emergency supply issue," said Rick Shintaku, the general manager of South Coast Water District. "There are five fault lines between South Orange County and the Deemer treatment plant that treats Metropolitan Water [from the Colorado River]. If any of those fault lines were to rupture, our regional water planning agency says we should be prepared to withstand a 60-day water outage."

Shintaku adds that the district only has a 13-day emergency water supply and that a drought-proof local source would provide peace of mind to residents. Although only 40,000 people live in Dana Point, the district hosts some 2 million tourists a year, and any interruption in water availability could have deep economic impacts.

Orange County Coastkeeper, an environmental non-profit that advocates for water issues in Orange County, was very actively opposed to the Huntington Beach Plant but does not object to the Doheny Desalination Plant.

"We support this because it meets all the criteria of the statewide desalination policy," said Ray Hiemstra, Associate Director of Programs for Orange County Coastkeeper. "If you're going to do a desalination plant, this is the way you should do it."

Hiemstra adds that it’s up to the local community to decide if desalination, and the higher rates it would probably bring, is the best idea.

Some environmentalists say the facility isn’t needed and that it’s smarter and less expensive to invest in conservation and water reclamation. In Northern Orange County, where the Huntington Beach desalination facility was proposed, the county has used the Groundwater Replenishment System (GWRS) since 2008. The largest potable water reuse plant in the world, the GWRS produces up to a 100 million gallons of recycled water each day, capturing water that would otherwise have gone into the ocean. This purified water, enough to satify the needs of almost 850,000 residents, is then injected into the local aquifer which supplies drinking water to consumers. Opponents of the Dana Point desalination plant such as the Sierra Club maintain that the district would be better served by investing in similar water reclamation projects.

"The Sierra Club position is that we do not need these desalination plants," said Penny Elia of the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter’s Water Committee. "We need conservation and we need to utilize all our recycled water."

In large part, the Huntington Beach plant didn’t get approval because it failed to adequately address concerns such as its vulnerability to sea-level rise. It it also failed to get community support. According to Feldman, the Coastal Commission’s decision on Huntington Beach set a precedent by which future desalination plants will be measured.

"I think it'll be incumbent upon the water agency supporting Doheny to be able to say that unlike Huntington Beach, we're doing X, Y and Z," said Feldman. "If they can make that case, and make it convincingly and continue with public support then, yes, it could very well be licensed."