
Water’s been scarce lately, and with the drought exacerbating problems throughout the Southwest, many cities are looking at spending more to get what they need. They can import water from long distances, mandate conservation measures (as the entire state of California has been doing for months), recycle wastewater, or turn to possibly the most costly option: desalination.
Water’s been scarce lately, and with the drought exacerbating problems throughout the Southwest, many cities are looking at spending more to get what they need. They can import water from long distances, mandate conservation measures (as the entire state of California has been doing for months), recycle wastewater, or turn to possibly the most costly option: desalination. [text_ad] This article in our sister publication, Water Efficiency, gives a good overview of how desalination works, particularly reverse osmosis, the most commonly used technique. Although still relatively rare in the United States, there are about 16,000 desalination plants worldwide, particularly in Middle Eastern countries. The article also mentions a hugely expensive project now underway in Carlsbad, CA—a billion-dollar desalination plant that will produce 50 million gallons of potable water a day for the San Diego region. (That’s about 8% of the total amount of water needed; consumers in the area can expect to pay about $5 per month more per household than they did before to cover the cost of the plant.) Although it’s one of the largest in this country, the Carlsbad plant—slated to open soon—is smallish by international standards. And it comes with risks. A plant about half this size opened in 2007 in Tampa, FL, but has been plagued with problems, including a bankrupt investor and failure to meet performance tests. As this Associated Pressarticle notes, the San Diego County Water Authority says it has “Tampa-proofed” its own plant by relying on experienced builders and getting outside investors to take on some of the financial risks. There are environmental risks, too. Getting the water from the ocean, if done through an open water intake, can kill fish that are caught on the screens as well as smaller organisms that pass through them. (A safer but more expensive alternative is to draw water through a subsurface intake.) Discharging the concentrated brine can also harm marine life, and California now limits the salt concentration of the discharges. How does stormwater fit into the equation? This guest editorial from Stormwater magazine (by an author in Texas, which is also uncomfortably familiar with drought) calls for shifting our priorities and designing stormwater management systems specifically to enhance the water supply—using a cheap and (usually) available resource rather than throwing it away. Do you think this approach can make a significant difference to the water shortages affecting so many cities? Are there examples of large-scale stormwater collection facilities in your area? Or is green infrastructure accomplishing something similar in a distributed fashion? Tell us about it in the comments below. StormCon Call for Papers Is Open StormCon, the only North American event dedicated exclusively to stormwater and surface-water professionals, is seeking abstracts for presentation at StormCon 2016. The deadline for submitting abstracts is Wednesday, December 9. The conference will be held in Indianapolis, IN, August 22–25, 2016. We are looking for abstracts in the following conference tracks:• BMP Case Studies • Green Infrastructure • Stormwater Program Management • Advanced Research Topics • Water-Quality Monitoring • Industrial Stormwater Management • Stormwater Management for Solid Waste Facilities
For more information, including the complete call for papers and an online form for submitting your abstract, visit www.StormCon.com.This article in our sister publication, Water Efficiency, gives a good overview of how desalination works, particularly reverse osmosis, the most commonly used technique. Although still relatively rare in the United States, there are about 16,000 desalination plants worldwide, particularly in Middle Eastern countries.
The article also mentions a hugely expensive project now underway in Carlsbad, CA—a billion-dollar desalination plant that will produce 50 million gallons of potable water a day for the San Diego region. (That’s about 8% of the total amount of water needed; consumers in the area can expect to pay about $5 per month more per household than they did before to cover the cost of the plant.) Although it’s one of the largest in this country, the Carlsbad plant—slated to open soon—is smallish by international standards.
And it comes with risks. A plant about half this size opened in 2007 in Tampa, FL, but has been plagued with problems, including a bankrupt investor and failure to meet performance tests. As this Associated Press article notes, the San Diego County Water Authority says it has “Tampa-proofed” its own plant by relying on experienced builders and getting outside investors to take on some of the financial risks.
There are environmental risks, too. Getting the water from the ocean, if done through an open water intake, can kill fish that are caught on the screens as well as smaller organisms that pass through them. (A safer but more expensive alternative is to draw water through a subsurface intake.) Discharging the concentrated brine can also harm marine life, and California now limits the salt concentration of the discharges.
How does stormwater fit into the equation? This guest editorial from Stormwater magazine (by an author in Texas, which is also uncomfortably familiar with drought) calls for shifting our priorities and designing stormwater management systems specifically to enhance the water supply—using a cheap and (usually) available resource rather than throwing it away.
Do you think this approach can make a significant difference to the water shortages affecting so many cities? Are there examples of large-scale stormwater collection facilities in your area? Or is green infrastructure accomplishing something similar in a distributed fashion? Tell us about it in the comments below.
StormCon Call for Papers Is Open
StormCon, the only North American event dedicated exclusively to stormwater and surface-water professionals, is seeking abstracts for presentation at StormCon 2016. The deadline for submitting abstracts is Wednesday, December 9.
The conference will be held in Indianapolis, IN, August 22–25, 2016. We are looking for abstracts in the following conference tracks:
• BMP Case Studies
• Green Infrastructure
• Stormwater Program Management
• Advanced Research Topics
• Water-Quality Monitoring
• Industrial Stormwater Management
• Stormwater Management for Solid Waste Facilities
Janice Kaspersen
Janice Kaspersen is the former editor of Erosion Control and Stormwater magazines.