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Yahoo!By a narrow majority, the Santa Barbara City Council voted to spend $122,000 on studying what it would take to bring the city’s 18-year-old desalination plant out of moth-balls and up and operating again in case of emergencies.
Paul Wellman
Santa Barbara's dormant water desalination plant.
Water planners argued the study would provide solid information about how much it would cost to make the desal plant — on which City Hall spent $34 million in 1991 — operational, whether new technology might reduce the energy demand, and what permits might be required. They also argued such information might prove useful as Santa Barbara prepares to revamp its general plan. Councilmember Das Williams worried that a new water supply — the original desal plant was designed to produce 7,500 acre-feet of water a year, more than half the city’s total water demand — would prove growth inducing. He argued City Hall should spend its money studying how much more water could be saved through conservation, the long-term effects of climate change, and how City Hall could further its water recycling efforts.
Paul Wellman
City Water Planner Bill Ferguson in a trailer that holds membrane filters at Santa Barbara's dormant water desalination plant.
Mayor Marty Blum argued that the cost of desalinated water was 25 times the price of its existing water and hence too expensive to fuel further growth. She said it would be “irresponsible” for the city not to find out what’s involved in re-activating the desal plant. And Councilmember Dale Francisco said such an emergency water supply could prove essential if the tunnels connecting city water customers with Santa Barbara’s two main reservoirs were to collapse in an earthquake. Without such a fall back plan, Francisco predicted, “There would be a lot of finger pointing and they would be pointing, justifiably, at us.”
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We have an oil shortage and a water shortage. More offshore drilling platforms are just around the corner. While oil and water do not normally mix, I would like to propose an instance where they just might do so. I propose that any new offshore drilling platforms be mandated to also include an ocean water desalination plant, using either reverse osmosis or distillation to turn salt water into drinking water. Now, here is the catch. Since offshore oil rigs bring oil and gas to the surface, it should be quite easy to siphon off some of the gas (methane) to directly power the desalinator. Voila! We now have an offshore rig that provides oil, gas and drinking water. It is a fully self-contained desalination plant that is completely self-powered, each sized to produce hundreds of thousands of gallons of inexhaustible drinking water for residents of the communities that have to look at the ugly structures. When the new rigs are installed, water pipes would be added along with the oil and gas pipes from the platform to shore, whereby the water can be added to our present water supply. The deal with the oil companies would be to provide the water at cost (or free) in exchange for drilling rights. While $5/gallon for gas is no fun, I would feel a little better knowing the oil companies were underwriting part of my water bill and, of course, making our community drought-resistant. Perhaps we should have them throw in enough methane to also power the sixteen year old land-based and mothballed Santa Barbara desalination facility. This really is not rocket science. As a retired rocket scientist I feel comfortable that all of the technology to accomplish this is in place. In fact, Santa Maria has just unveiled an electric generating system for powering a medical center which uses previously wasted methane gas siphoned from a landfill, and unused offshore platforms have been used to house desal facilities in several foreign countries. By placing the facilities offshore, the ecological issues of marine life disturbance and brine discharge are substantially reduced.
Researcher (anonymous profile)
August 7, 2008 at 9:37 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Researcher for Pres, Gov, Mayor, energy czar!
lordleadbetter (anonymous profile)
August 7, 2008 at 10:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)
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