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Seawater Desalination: Urban Myth or Urban Supply?

Large-scale seawater desalination in California has almost achieved the status of urban myth. The idea of turning saltwater into freshwater is not new. Julius Caesar’s men turned the salty Mediterranean into drinking water; Thomas Jefferson promoted desalination within the fledgling United States Navy; and John F. Kennedy was quoted as saying, "[i]f we could produce fresh water from salt water at a low cost, that would indeed be a great service to humanity, and would dwarf any other scientific accomplishment."

For a long time, however, California’s unquenchable thirst has not overcome a more powerful force – economics. Cost, more than anything else, has preserved large-scale seawater desalination’s mythological status in California. In the 1950s, the cost to treat seawater was estimated at $12 to $14 per 1,000 gallons of water. In 1990, with the advancement of desalination technology, that estimate fell to $6 per 1,000 gallons of water. Still, that cost dwarfed the price from other sources – the same amount of water from the State Water Project or the Colorado River was less than $1.

In other areas of the world, where economically viable alternative sources are not available, desalination has already been implemented on a massive scale. For example, Saudi Arabia produces more than 1 billion gallons of water per day through desalination, meeting 70% of the kingdom’s drinking water needs. However, in California the cost of desalination historically could not be justified. But time and technology have marched on, and desalination is becoming feasible. The current technology of choice, reverse osmosis – where seawater is pressed through membrane filters to produce freshwater – can now be implemented at an approximate cost of $2 to $3 per 1,000 gallons. On the horizon, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is working on nanotechnology that may decrease that cost by as much as 75 percent. At the same time, alternative sources are becoming more scarce and, in turn, more expensive. The time now seems ripe for large-scale seawater desalination in California, but it is still by no means assured.

Some desalination facilities exist on California’s coast – presently capable of producing approximately three million gallons of water per day. The wave of new proposals rolling out, however, would increase this capacity to 240 million gallons per day. Among these proposals, two projects in Huntington Beach and Carlsbad have garnered the bulk of recent attention. Each proposed facility is designed to produce 50 million gallons of water per day – double the size of the largest desalination facility ever built in the United States (the largest existing facility, in Tampa Bay, Florida, was designed to produce 25 million gallons per day, but it has been plagued with operational problems and has yet to consistently achieve the designed capacity). 

The proposed facility in Huntington Beach looks as though it may be the first test case to see whether California really is ready to turn the desalination myth into reality. The estimated $250 million project would be privately built and operated by Poseidon Resources, a relatively small, privately-held corporation based in Connecticut. The project has already roiled controversy over whether California’s ocean water should be made available for private profit.

A more technical objection has been over the project’s use of a seawater intake and outfall pipe, called a "once-through cooling" system, that is already in place for the adjacent power plant. This co-location of the desalination project with the power plant’s existing seawater cooling system is intended to minimize environmental impacts by avoiding the construction of a new separate water intake and outfall. The design has appeal – no additional water is drawn out of the sea that hasn’t already been taken in for the power plant. The problem is that the existing once-through cooling systems are themselves the focus of a growing opposition. The systems are falling into disfavor because they cause the entrainment and impingement of fish and aquatic organisms. Opponents of the desalination project argue that the project will perpetuate these impacts by creating an additional dependent use of the intake and outfall system. Thus, even if the power plant could convert to a different cooling system, the desalination project would still need to keep the system in operation.

The argument against once-through cooling has gained traction with a number of governmental entities in California, including the California Coastal Commission. In a May 26, 2005 letter from the Commission commenting on the Huntington project, the Commission indicated that the project should not simply assume that it can rely upon the neighboring power plant’s cooling system. What if the power plant is decommissioned? What if the power plant designs a different cooling treatment system? Moreover, the State Lands Commission recently adopted an agency resolution on April 17, 2006, that identifies the environmental impacts caused by once-through cooling systems, provides that no leases will be granted for new power facilities that use such cooling systems, and places certain requirements on existing power facilities before they can obtain lease extensions or renewals. (Currently, there are 21 coastal power plants with once-through cooling systems in California.) The California Ocean Protection Council, within the California Resources Agency, adopted a similar resolution on April 20, 2006, calling for the phasing out of once-through cooling systems in the state.

In response, proponents of the Huntington desalination project have insisted that environmental review is only required for existing or reasonably foreseeable future conditions, and that the power plant does not have any plans to reduce or change its cooling water needs. Notwithstanding the once-through cooling system controversy, on February 28, 2006, the Huntington Beach City Council narrowly approved the desalination project by one vote. Shortly thereafter, two Coastal Commissioners and the local chapter of the Surfrider Foundation appealed the City’s approval, and the Commission has now assumed jurisdiction over the project. At the time of this article, the Coastal Commission staff had not issued a report and recommendation, but the once-through cooling system problem looks as though it may be insurmountable. The outcome of the Huntington Beach project may also dictate the fate of the Carlsbad project, which also proposes reliance on an adjacent power plant’s once-through cooling system. Nevertheless, the Carlsbad City Council gave its unanimous approval on June 13, 2006.

Even if the Huntington Beach and Carlsbad projects are not built, large-scale desalination may still be in California’s future. The Metropolitan Water District has conducted preliminary studies for a large-scale facility at Dana Point. Rather than co-locating with a power plant’s infrastructure, the Dana Point project design calls for an underground intake that would lie below the sea floor. This underground design avoids the entrainment and impingement impacts that have generated such controversy in Huntington Beach and Carlsbad. The Coastal Commission approved a small- scale study project for Dana Point, using the underground design, with little fanfare. In a similar vein, the Commission approved other small projects using underground intakes in Sand City and Long Beach.

In Northern California, a number of San Francisco Bay Area water districts are engaged in a joint effort to explore their own large-scale project (possibly more than double the size of the Huntington Beach project). In initial studies, that project identified a preference for co-locating with a Pittsburg power plant. However, in light of the obstacles faced by the Huntington Beach and Carlsbad projects, the Bay Area utilities would be wise to reconsider that location.

If seawater desalination can be successfully implemented in California on a large-scale, it promises a reliable, consistent water supply that would not be vulnerable to dry-year shortages. This option is attractive, particularly given recent water supply legislation, such as SB 610 and SB 221, that requires the demonstration of an available water supply for development. California’s population growth, and the concomitant demand for water, should lead to desalination projects of a much greater magnitude than have been built in the past. Based on the experience of current proposals, anyone hoping to draw water from the ocean would be smart to first bury their straws underground.