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What water infrastructure has California invested in the last decade? As far as I can tell, all that CA Gov has done is to prohibit any desalination plants fro

What water infrastructure has California invested in the last decade? As far as I can tell, all that CA Gov has done is to prohibit any desalination plants from getting built.

leoh 4y ago
Yeah, it's not a good look, especially since California is the only state that is adjacent to the ocean. Not only that, renewables like solar are perfect for desalination as you don't really need one of these systems to be running around the clock.
- rufus_foreman 4y ago
  >> California is the only state that is adjacent to the ocean That's interesting, I had no idea.
  - grogenaut 4y ago
    best intent assumption that they meant "of the states having water shortages in the southwest". The other 2 on the coast are OR and WA and they are not dependent on the colorado for water, they have their own massive river.
    - rufus_foreman 4y ago
      Thanks for the clarification, I honestly didn't know what they were asserting.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    It's the only state in the Colorado River Compact adjacent to the ocean. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact Places like Hawaii and Florida are, for obvious reasons, not relevant to the Colorado River.
- burritas 4y ago
  The big showstopper is what to do with the hypersalinated byproduct. You'd kill anything that was near where it's let out. It's also very corrosive and I imagine the would be a problem moving it far from the plant.
  - LorenPechtel 4y ago
    It's not actually that big a deal, it's just they don't want to deal with it. You discharge pipe has to be a lot longer, spreading it over enough water for it not to matter. (Spread it enough and it's no more of an issue than evaporation at the surface increasing salinity.) You can also pump ordinary seawater into the discharge system to lower it's salinity before release. If you have the real estate you can also go with evaporation ponds. Probably not too viable in California but it could be done in Texas.

What water infrastructure has California invested in the last decade? As far as I can tell, all that CA Gov has done is to prohibit any desalination plants from getting built.

leoh 4y ago

Yeah, it's not a good look, especially since California is the only state that is adjacent to the ocean. Not only that, renewables like solar are perfect for desalination as you don't really need one of these systems to be running around the clock.

rufus_foreman 4y ago
>> California is the only state that is adjacent to the ocean That's interesting, I had no idea.
- grogenaut 4y ago
  best intent assumption that they meant "of the states having water shortages in the southwest". The other 2 on the coast are OR and WA and they are not dependent on the colorado for water, they have their own massive river.
  - rufus_foreman 4y ago
    Thanks for the clarification, I honestly didn't know what they were asserting.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  It's the only state in the Colorado River Compact adjacent to the ocean. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact Places like Hawaii and Florida are, for obvious reasons, not relevant to the Colorado River.
burritas 4y ago
The big showstopper is what to do with the hypersalinated byproduct. You'd kill anything that was near where it's let out. It's also very corrosive and I imagine the would be a problem moving it far from the plant.
- LorenPechtel 4y ago
  It's not actually that big a deal, it's just they don't want to deal with it. You discharge pipe has to be a lot longer, spreading it over enough water for it not to matter. (Spread it enough and it's no more of an issue than evaporation at the surface increasing salinity.) You can also pump ordinary seawater into the discharge system to lower it's salinity before release. If you have the real estate you can also go with evaporation ponds. Probably not too viable in California but it could be done in Texas.