California Coastal Commission eyes desalination policy in 2018

STATEWIDE — The worst of California’s most recent drought cycle might be over, but policymakers are still contemplating desalination as a potential solution to future water shortages. Members of the California Coastal Commission, contemplating its 2018 agenda, held a study session on desalination at its final meeting of 2017. Some of the questions Coastal Commission members will face as they devise a desalination policy during the next 12 (or more) months including how water will be sourced at new plants and how saltwater conversion plants affect marine life. Tom Luster, a senior environmental scientist with the Coastal Commission, provided a detailed, technical presentation of seawater desalination and its potential impacts. Much of his presentation focused on subsurface intake designs and other ideas to draw open water into a desalination plant with minimal loss of marine life. Luster said various federal and state policies, such as the Clean Water Act, Coastal Act and State Water Code, have all carry a similar goal in governing desalination plants on the coast: “Don’t kill marine life if you don’t have to.” “In seawater there are planktons. That’s the basis of one of the key environmental issues we deal with in citing, designing and permitting seawater desalt facilities. Seawater...