Desalination

Debunking the Myth of Desalination

Private industry and water agencies are planning over 18 open ocean desalination facilities statewide, a surge in capacity from 1,700 acre-feet per year (AFY) to over 300,000 AFY.  Desalination facilities will use the same pipes as once-through cooling (OTC) facilities, continuing to suck-in billions of gallons of water and killing marine life long after the power plants stop using OTC. Desalination is the most energy intensive source of water available and undermines statewide efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Once the desalinating process is complete, a plant will discharge concentrated brine into sensitive marine habitats.  Left unchecked, the cumulative impacts of multiple open ocean desalination facilities could effectively undermine the gains to the marine environment. 

By contrast, water supply strategies such as increased conservation and stormwater capture and reuse can be developed swiftly at relatively low cost, and are consistent with the state’s climate change mitigation goals. Where ocean desalination is deemed absolutely necessary, the state should require less destructive sub-surface intake systems, and the best available technology for brine dilution, including: (1) high pressure diffusers; (2) Zero Desalination Discharge technologies; or (3) the dilution with recycled water or wastewater discharges.  The state should also investigate “green” desalination of brackish groundwater using alternative energy sources. A cumulative impacts study also needs to be conducted to better understand the combined impacts from increased energy demand, greenhouse gas emissions, discharges of brine (including acidification), impingement and entrainment, salt water intrusion into local aquifers, and other cumulative coastal and marine ecosystem impacts.  Agencies then need to plan desalination facilities away from environmental sensitive areas, including Marine Protected Areas and Areas of Special Biological Significance.

CCKA Is Taking Action

With a proposed 18,000% increase in desalination capacity along the California coast, CCKA is taking efforts to ensure that protections are in place to safeguard the health of the marine environment. In March 2011, after more than a decade of persistent advocacy by CCKA and other groups, the State Water Board identified desalination and brine disposal as a “very high priority issue” in its Triennial Review Ocean Plan Workplan and targeted the adoption of a policy to address it by 2012.  In April 2011, CCKA attended the Board’s initial scoping meeting to send a strong message to the Board that the desalination policy must be science-based, address both intake and discharge impacts to the marine environment, and be adopted and implemented swiftly.  Moreover, thanks to CCKA's advocacy, the Ocean Protection Council's (OPC) Five-Year Strategic Plan sets a goal to "work with relevant state agencies to develop policies that are consistent with OPC resolutions related to existing and emerging uses, such as development of a statewide desalination policy that addresses marine intakes, in-plant dilution,and brine disposal."  In April, CCKA submitted comments to the State Water Board regarding the scope and content of information that should be included in the substitute environmental documentation for proposed amendments to the Water Quality Control Plan for Ocean Waters of California and the Water Quality Control Plan for Enclosed Bays and Estuaries of California to address desalination facilities and brine disposal (Desalination Policy).  CCKA will continue to monitor and comment on the desalination policy to ensure impacts are minimized according to the law.