We want it to be at least a single-A rated, complete project before we want that on our balance sheet, Lisa Marie Harris, the agencys finance director, said at the meeting. Carlsbad Desalination Plant in San Diego, California, requires approximately 35 MW to run and provides 50 million gallons of water supply per day (Carlsbad Desalination Project 2017). May 12, 2022 Updated 10:35 PM PT After hearing hours of heated debate, the California Coastal Commission voted against a controversial plan by the company Poseidon Water to build a huge. Alas, voters will continue to elect politicians who are "serious" about climate change without appreciating just how much their hands are tied because doing anything about climate change, particularly when it comes to water and food security, is likely to engender opposition from environmental lobbies. IDE Technologies is jointly owned by Delek Group and Israel Chemicals. The water authority has a provision in its contract that allows it to buy the facility for $1 after its contract term expires in 2045. Most desalination plants discharge water with about 50% extra salt, which can lead to dead spots in the ocean, because the super-saline brine doesn't mix well with seawater. #1106 [32], The outflow of the plant is put into the discharge from the Encina Power Plant for dilution, for a final salt concentration about 20% higher than seawater. Desalinating seawater sounds easy, but there are cheaper and more Carlsbad Desalination Plant: drinking water in the U.S. - We Build Value Deadpool! [16] The NRG Encina Power Station is expected to go offline in 2017, and Poseidon Water will then take over dredging responsibility for the Agua Hedionda Lagoon, taking over from NRG;[33] without dredging at the mouth of the lagoon, it would revert to being a pre-1952 mudflat. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. Experts say more research is needed to determine how much sea life is destroyed by the Carlsbad plant, which, as Huntington Beach would do, uses intake pipes built for a retired power plant's cooling system. While the electricity provided to the plant accounts for less than 1% of the peak energy demand in the SDG&E service territory, Poseidon and the San Diego County Water Authority which purchases and distributes the water produced at the plant were committed to doing everything they could to help ensure water and electricity reliability for our communities. The San Diego County Water Authority approved a 30-year agreement with the plants operators to purchase up to 56,000 acre-feet of desalinated seawater per year, enough to meet about 8 percent of the San Diego regions projected water demand in 2020. [26] In December 2018, the plant produced its 40-billionth gallon of water;[27] it can provide water for up to 400,000 people. The massive desalination plant in Carlsbad that accounts for about 10 percent of the drinkable water in San Diego County is reportedly about to be sold for more than $1 billion to a subsidiary of an investment company based in Scotland, but the San Diego County Water Authority it does not expect a potential sale to affect customers in the area. Poseidon furthered its commitment to protect and preserve San Diegos coastal environment by assuming stewardship of Carlsbads beloved Agua Hedionda Lagoon. [1] Membrane technology used in the plant was pioneered by General Atomics in La Jolla. This reduced to 70% fulfillment of water orders in 2017. Divers recently discovered up to 6 inches of marine life growing on the inside of the facilitys main intake pipeline, requiring days of tedious underwater scraping and removal. The massive new Carlsbad desalination plant is the biggest in the country, capable of supplying water to around 7 percent of the population of San Diego County. He was previously posted in Cuba, Spain, Mexico and Nicaragua, covering top world stories such as the normalization of Cuban-U.S. relations and the Madrid train bombing by Islamist radicals. The Carlsbad Desalination Plant is the nation's largest seawater desalination plant, producing an average daily flow of 50 million gallons per day (MGD . Desalination has evolved into a desirable water supply alternative by tapping the largest reservoir in the world - the Pacific Ocean. Largely because of the energy required, the desalinated water that Southern California plants sell to local water authorities is the most expensive alternative to water brought in from the Colorado River and Northern California. Agency staff cited environmental as well as cost concerns. Heres where you can cool off, Port of San Diego brings back Randa Coniglio as acting president and CEO. The Water Authority added desalinated seawater to its supply portfolio in 2015 with the start of commercial operations at the nation's largest seawater desalination plant - the result of a public-private partnership in the coastal town of Carlsbad. Scientists are exploring ways for climate-threatened . Why Isn't Desalination the Answer to All California's Water - KQED The intakes also have bars to prevent marine mammals from getting close to the screens and a floating boom to stop floating debris. A 2015 state environmental report by staff of the State Water Resources Control Board examined studies on 18 power plants taking in water for cooling. [28] In January 2019, a study was published which noted that the discharge from the plant has increased the salinity of water offshore, but it has not made significant changes to the organisms in the water. Benefits The Carlsbad City Council found that "the desalination plant serves an extraordinary public purpose. Screen for heightened risk individual and entities globally to help uncover hidden risks in business relationships and human networks. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune. Poseidon officials quickly realized that the proposed design would require shutting down whats officially known as the Claude Bud Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant for about a month every year so that divers could clean the new lines, creating a huge and unforeseen expense. ", SDCWA's Carlsbad Desalination Plant fact sheet, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Claude_%22Bud%22_Lewis_Carlsbad_Desalination_Plant&oldid=1165994206, Water supply infrastructure in California, Buildings and structures in San Diego County, California, Infobox mapframe without OSM relation ID on Wikidata, Wikipedia articles in need of updating from May 2022, All Wikipedia articles in need of updating, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0, This page was last edited on 18 July 2023, at 18:49. Recently approved updates to the facility are expected to increase the daily production of drinking water from 54 million to 60 million gallons. Beyond its core function of supplying our region with water, Ive ultimately been impressed with the efforts that plant operator Poseidon Water has made to mitigate environmental impacts from the plant. It looks like cost per gallon is 3 X compared to cost per gallon via conservation . With only 2-3 years left for Mother Nature to break the drought before water levels fall too low to support electrical generation on the Colorado River, it may already be a case of too little, too late. Newsom was praised by Left/Right-leaning media alike for supporting the Huntington Beach desalinization project which was nevertheless derailed on environmental grounds. Jade also had the opportunity to cover international news and was able to travel to South Africa during the 2010 World Cup. If at that belated stage we finally choose to act, how much infrastructure for water desalanization or otherwise will we be able to build without reliable electric power. The ability of the board members to defy this lower demand reality was unshakable. Jade Hindmon is KPBS Midday Edition co-host. How did San Diegos sewage-blasted shorelines evade list of dirtiest beaches in California? "It's always full.". If environmental groups genuinely believe that Climate Change is an existential threat, we can no longer afford to squabble as we did in the 1987-1992 drought with little accounting for the fact that importing water for still-growing populations in the Southwest is itself unsustainable. After five years, even this skeptic has been convinced that the Carlsbad Desalination Plant should serve as a model for what is possible elsewhere. To cite a recent example, Gov. But as Western states face an epic drought, regulators appear ready to approve a desalination plant in Huntington Beach, California. State's biggest desal plant to open: What it means - The San Diego [36], The plant is expected to produce 5010^6USgal (190,000m3) of water per day[37] (0.069km3/a) with energy use of ~3.6[38] kWh for 1 m3 fresh water, or ~38 MW of average continuous power. [5] Five lawsuits were brought against the plant, including by Surfrider Foundation, San Diego Coastkeeper, and the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation, but none were successful. The commissions deadline to start that work was last year. It would require a 190-acre solar farm to produce that amount of renewable power everyday to keep Poseidon in business. Megan Burke is an Emmy-award winning news editor overseeing the environment, health, and racial justice and social equity reporting beats. The San Diego County Water Authority approved the upgrades to the plants seawater intakes at a board meeting on Thursday. [9] It was named after former Carlsbad mayor, Claude "Bud" Lewis, who held the position for almost a quarter of a century. The Carlsbad facility is the largest desalination plant in the nation and has produced more than 62 billion gallons of drinking water since it began operation in 2015. Symbolic gestures arent enough. (Lenny Ignelzi/AP Photo) Millions of residents in seven states that depend on the Colorado River which no longer makes it to sea! However, the ONE thing we do not have the option to do is to waste valuable time. A divided MTS board says yes, Otay Mesa border crossing, other San Diego projects to get $260M from gas tax, Legislation extends studies of coastal erosion in Del Mar, Encinitas, Outdoors: Meteor shower an opportunity for those searching science, soul, Tecolote Shores reopened after sewage spill leads to water closure, Look up!
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