On Tuesday, Nov. 17, Poseidon Water announced its unprecedented commitment to carbon neutrality by offsetting 100% of the direct and indirect emissions from the construction and operation of its proposed Huntington Beach Seawater Desalination Plant, which is currently under review by the California Coastal Commission. Poseidon’s Energy Minimization and Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan (“GHG Plan”) was submitted to the Commission as part of its permit application on November 9th. 

Sen. Barbara Boxer said Tuesday that she will push desalination as a response to California’s drought, citing Israel’s strategy of converting salt water to freshwater to solve its chronic water shortages. In a separate Senate hearing on the drought, Republicans indicated that drought legislation being crafted by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and House Republicans from the Central Valley directed at California would be considered only as part of broader legislation covering the entire West. 

California, especially the Central Valley and Southern California, is experiencing the worst drought since the 1970s, and arguably the worst drought in its recorded history (about 65 years). Yet to most Californians, it is nothing more than a small inconvenience because water still flows from our taps and shower heads, and clean, safe drinking water – in the form of bottled water – is always available.

HUNTINGTON BEACH, CA, - On Thursday, May 14, the Orange County Water District (OCWD) Board of Directors voted to approve a Water Reliability Agreement term sheet with Poseidon Water that will allow OCWD to secure the single largest source of new, local water supply available to Orange County -- 56,000 acre-feet of water annually from the proposed seawater desalination project in Huntington Beach (see "OCWD enters negotiations to secure single largest source of new water"). 

Forty years ago this spring, Water Factory 21, an advanced wastewater treatment plant, began operation, as did a companion seawater desalter plant. They were jointly funded by the Orange County Water District and the U.S. Department of Interior. While WF21 would become an internationally acclaimed water treatment facility, the desalter plant was shuttered after less than a year – not because desalination lacked promise, but because the 1975 recession forced the federal government to cut spending. Forty years later, OCWD is considering a partnership with Poseidon Resources, a private developer, in its planned Ocean Desalination Plant in Huntington Beach. 

Read the full article online at ocregister.com.

Ocean desalination is an urgent necessity for Orange County. As California faces mandatory water restrictions for the first time in history, we need to be pursuing all of our options. I often hear versions of the question, “How will Orange County protect itself from this systemic water crisis?” As a scientist, doctor and father, desal is a commonsense answer. It’s really a no-brainer. We’re blessed with an abundant water source (the Pacific Ocean) at our doorstep, so let’s tap it. But, as an elected official representing the public, I know that it’s imperative to also contemplate costs and taxpayer risk.

It’s the fourth year of California’s historic drought, and there’s no end in sight. We need realistic solutions to ensure our state’s water security, and we need to take preventative action.

Residents and businesses are doing their part to cut consumption, but it’s only part of the equation. Our policymakers need to act to ensure we have new, reliable sources of water, and that means desalination for communities with the need for reliable drinking water but increasingly expensive imported water.
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The California Coastal Commission is nearing a decision on whether or not to allow the construction of a new desalination plant in Huntington Beach. Read the full article online at marinij.com .

Thomas Elias - Syndicated Columnist.
“Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink…”
— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798, in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
The reality confronting millions of Californians as they cope with yet another lengthy episode in a seemingly endless series of droughts is that — like Coleridge’s mariner — this state has billions of acre-feet of water clearly visible every day in the form of the Pacific Ocean and its many bays and estuaries. 

​But that’s briny salt water, containing an array of minerals that make it almost as inaccessible today as it was to that parched, fictitious sailor of 200 years ago. 

But it doesn’t have to stay that way. As the price of water goes up, desalinating Pacific waters becomes ever more enticing and it will become more so if the price of taking salts and other impurities out of salt water falls. In short, if the rising price of fresh water ever comes to match a falling cost for purified sea water, expect desalination to begin on a large scale in California.

Read the full article online at dailynews.com.

KGO San Francisco. SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) - As California faces a fourth dry year, experts are taking a serious look at desalinating seawater as a technology that could make a real difference in the drought. With salt water on three sides of the Bay Area, officials say it's a very real a possibility. 

Read the full article online at abc7news.com .

Read the full article online at sandiegouniontribune.com.