Desalination Projects Underway in California

All Things Considered:

On the coast in Carlsbad, Calif., construction workers are building what will be the largest seawater desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere. When finished in early 2016, it is expected to provide up to 50 million gallons of fresh drinkable water every day.
"That's enough water for 112,000 households here in the region," says Peter MacLaggan with Poseidon Resources, the developer of this $1 billion plant.
The process, MacLaggan explains, involves taking water from the Pacific Ocean, removing the silt, sand and "organics," then pressurizing the water through very fine membranes. The technical name is reverse osmosis. And the result? "Every 2 gallons of seawater that goes in, 1 gallon of high-quality drinking water comes out," he says.
And MacLaggan says the best part is it's droughtproof.
"It's droughtproof because it's not dependent on snowpack in the Sierras, it's not dependent on rainfall here in San Diego," he says. "You're getting water from the Pacific Ocean."
The word "droughtproof" carries a lot of weight in California. That snowpack in the Sierra Nevada he's talking about is still less than half of what it should be for this time of year. Farmers, environmentalists and cities like nearby San Diego have been fighting over what little water there is.
"San Diego currently imports about 70 percent of its water," says Bob Yamada, the water resources manager at the San Diego County Water Authority..... Statewide, 17 desalination plants are in some stage of planning on the California coast.

The program also featured a story about the opportunities for and challenges of rainwater harvesting and wastewater recycling as methods of decreasing dependence on imported water in southern California.

I have to admit that stories like the California drought or large floods on the Mississippi River really intrigue me, since they cover some of my favorite topics: hydrology, hydraulics, infrastructure, agriculture and severe weather.  Yes, I'm a nerd.  But what do you expect from an engineer and a farmer?