One month after proposing to put a man on the moon, JFK said getting drinking water from the ocean would be “one of the great breakthroughs of history” that would “dwarf any other scientific accomplishments.”
Californians have worried about water for decades. The Colorado River, upon which the entire Southwest depends, is dying. The region’s only major water source is drying up, the climate is changing, the globe warming, the snow no longer falling, the reservoirs shrinking, and there is no end in sight. Everyone must use less water, especially those upstream from California (which is everyone else). Forget new development – there is no more water. All the legal agreements must be rewritten because the river simply cannot continue to supply all the people who once relied on it.
California has pushed this narrative for years, presumably based on genuine worry, and spent billions on water planning. So, now that San Diego has finally broken the technology barrier that for so long precluded using the ocean water that is so abundant and so close, can you imagine the relief its citizens must feel? The Carlsbad desalination plant, for a cost of $1 billion, has successfully launched and can produce 50 million gallons of fresh drinkable water every day, roughly 56,000 acre-feet a year. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times both hyped the fact that San Diego now has so much water it can sell it to others.
How excited must Californians be? How must their leaders feel, who have spent so many years searching for solutions to a seemingly unsolvable water dilemma? I’m sure not all Californians agree, but the reaction of many of that State’s politicians, bloggers, columnists, activists, and even some water leaders has been: Disaster! One of the worst things that has ever happened to the state’s taxpayers! A colossal waste! An affront to nature! And they are serious – bound and determined to make sure it never happens again.
The excuses for the West Coasters’ refusal to consider desalination – which the rest of the country has always known is their obvious solution – just seem more pathetic now that the Carlsbad plant proves the technology works just as well there as elsewhere around the world.
First, opponents decry the cost, which the San Diego Cunty Water Authority estimated at just over $3,000 per acre foot. They claim that is three times the cost of water imported from the Colorado River – except that they are the ones constantly harping that there is no more water in the Colorado River and everyone must cut back. Translation: everyone else must cut back.
Second, they argue that there is no consensus on how the state should regulate the desalination industry. No one agrees on who is in charge, so each proposal must lumber through an uncoordinated multi-agency permitting process. Whose fault is that?
Next, questioning the need, a top California environmental leader wrote a few years ago that desalination only seemed attractive during sustained droughts (hello?), and anyway the demand was based on new development, ended by the 2008-09 bust. He called desalination a “redundant water supply” because it rained heavily that year.
Another complains that desalination plants put salt removed from ocean water back into the ocean, harming the environment. Meaning fish that thrive in saltwater? How does one keep a straight face claiming that thimblefuls of salt will harm the ocean?
Such is the perpetual attitude of California water officials. In 2006 there were 29 proposals for desalination projects along the Pacific coast. By 2020 all but 4 were denied or withdrawn. Then the largest, Poseidon Resources’ proposed $1.4 billion plant at Huntington Beach, was unanimously rejected by the California Coastal Commission. San Diego’s tiny Carlsbad facility is now the largest desalination plant in the western hemisphere, though reports say it sits idle much of the time because Colorado River water is cheaper.
It also takes energy to power desalination, yet California has reduced its oil production by two-thirds since 1985. The excuses are getting thin, while Lakes Mead and Powell have both reached critically low levels. A BlueRibbon Coalition analysis suggests $40 billion could build eight giant desalination plants and supply the State’s entire need. California feigns outrage at such a price – while spending $231 billion on its high-speed rail boondoggle without batting an eye.
Other states are willing to help finance desalination. The federal government can help. And California has the world’s fourth largest economy, with a GDP of over $4 trillion. Is money really the problem?
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