A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
August 2, 2007
2. Supply
Panel lets water flow to plant; Moss Landing: Desal pilot project gets first test
By Kevin Howe, staff writer
The California Energy Commission turned on the tap for an experimental seawater desalination plant in Moss Landing Wednesday.
The commission, meeting in Sacramento, voted 4-0 to allow modification of the cooling water intake system for Moss Landing Power Plant by owner Dynegy so that some of that water can be diverted to a pilot desalination plant being installed by California American Water.
Cal Am plans to operate the desalination facility for a year to test the feasibility of converting
The 6,500-square-foot pilot desalination plant will cost approximately $3 million and divert up to 288,000 gallons of seawater per day from the power plant's once-through cooling water intake system, which draws 180 million to 1 billion gallons a day.
The seawater will go through two parallel pretreatment processes and reverse osmosis systems, and the desalinated water — as well as the brine discharge produced by the pilot plant — will be mixed back into the power plant's outfall before being discharged into Monterey Bay. None of the desalinated water produced will be used for human consumption.
Objections to the permit were raised at Wednesday's hearing by Madeleine Clarke, director of the Elkhorn Slough Coalition, and Carolyn Nielson, a retired teacher and former docent at Elkhorn Slough Reserve.
The Elkhorn Slough Coalition has voiced concern about the destruction of marine organisms sucked into the intake pipes and the increased in temperature, mineral and chemical content of the water that is discharged back into the bay.
Nielson cited studies indicating sea otter deaths in the area had been due to diseases, including salmonella, E. coli bacterial infection and toxoplasma gondii infection — caused the presence of a number of strains of bacteria in the warm water discharged from the power plant into the bay.
Studies show that water passing through the pilot desalination plant will be treated with or come in contact with various treatment chemicals, including chlorine, acids, coagulants, polymers and cleaning agents applied at various times to the plant machinery.
Discharge of such chemicals is expected to amount to less than 100 gallons a day, along with about 100 pounds of residual solids per day. The heaviest concentrations will go into a sewer system, not the outfall.
Construction of the plant is already under way and "we expect that we'll be connecting the plant in September," said Cal Am spokeswoman Catherine Bowie.
Testing of the plant's equipment will follow, she said, and Cal Am expects it to be treating water by late September or early October.
The pilot desalination plant is a precursor to development of a $200 million regional seawater desalination plant and distribution system by Cal Am at or near Moss Landing that would produce 11,730 acre-feet of fresh, potable water a year.
The water company's Coastal Water Project, including the regional desalination plant as well as aquifer and storage and recovery system, is its attempt to comply with a 1995 order by the state Water Resources Control Board to stop overpumping in the
That year, the water board advised Cal Am that it was taking 14,106 acre-feet per year from the
A court has ordered that producers of water from the Seaside basin aquifer — Sand City, Seaside, Cal Am and others — reduce their pumping from the aquifer's coastal subareas by 2,219 acre-feet and their pumping from the Laguna Seca subarea by 381 acre-feet, for a total reduction for the entire Seaside basin of 2,600 acre-feet by October 2027. #
http://www.montereyherald.com/local/ci_6523456?nclick_check=1
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