August, 2002

California's got until the end of the year to cut down on what they're sucking out of the Colorado River.

Which makes sense.

So, they have a plan to collect and store water from under private land in the Mojave Desert. The Bush administration has signed off on the proposal by a private company, Cadiz, Inc.

Which makes no sense.

We're not going to work our way out of water dependence by mining the few underground resources left to us. Water tables are dropping disastrously all over the United States (as well as across the world) and there are no answers to be found other than desalinization. Desalinization is practical, even now and offers development to new levels of credibility. California, a leader in environmental issues, should certainly lead the way in this most important agricultural and life-sustaining process.

Tampa Bay Water, a local government agency in Tampa, Florida has proposed a desalinization plant that in a single installation will provide 25 million gallons of potable water a day. "Desalinated seawater is a drought-proof, alternative water supply that can be produced in an environmentally and economically sound manner," according to the Tampa Bay water position statement.

Natural underground aquifers cannot possibly sustain additional pressure, yet they provide the opportunity to bounce back if left alone. Obviously, the relief should come from states bordering our oceans, allowing inland water needs to benefit from renewed groundwater.

Predictably, environmentalists are attacking the Tampa plan on the basis that it will increase the salinity of Tampa Bay. Present salinity in Tampa Bay is 26.0 parts per thousand and the discharged water, after desalinization, registers at 26.3 parts per thousand, which doesn't sound like a damaging increase. Even so, moving the discharge several miles out into the Bay or even into the Gulf of Mexico would solve the issue of increased salinity. It's possible. It can be done.

Interestingly, desalinization technology has advanced to the point that desalinated water is not substantially more costly than extracting potable water from rivers and aquifers. Pennies on the dollar, they claim. We can afford pennies on the dollar.

Plants similar to Tampa Bay Water's proposed plant could be built offshore, much as offshore oil rigs now operate. Out of sight, discharging their minute increases in salinity into the open ocean.

Senator Dianne Feinstein opposes the Cadiz project on the basis that it's a danger to the desert aquifer and the desert ecology it supports. She's no doubt right, to the degree that it's impossible to continue to squeeze more blood out of the same turnip. And all groundwater is essentially the same turnip, a resource dependent upon rainfall and snowmelt. Rainfall and snowmelt are unreliable from year to year, decade to decade. Population requirements are painfully reliable, always upward. Seawater plants will be problematic, but we are a nation of problem solvers. Unfortunately, we are not always a nation that recognizes problems that are out of sight. We expect water.

Desalinization is the only technology that ameliorates a growing need with a diminishing resource.

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