India’s Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in Mumbai has rejected a proposal to create desalination plants to deal with the city’s water crisis.  BMC has explained that steep costs and a lack of land prohibited such a venture.^[1]  The BMC arrived at its decision after it appointed a committee to examine measures for setting up desalination plants in Mumbai.  The committee recommended the installation of two pilot plants of 100 million litres daily capacity each, one for the city, and another for suburbs and metropolitan areas.   Ultimately, the committee’s recommendations were untenable.  The primary issue was that the construction of these two plants required 25 acres of land along the coast, which Mumbai Port Trust and city officials said was unavailable.  Second, the BMC determined that it would be less expensive to build pipelines to retrieve water from more conventional fresh water sources such as rivers, which are available within 100 to 150 kilometres of the city.^[2]

California’s 55-member Congressional delegation is contending the state’s ongoing drought.  Last week, Senator Dianne Feinstein released a multi-pronged water plan—which she explained was the most difficult bill she has prepared in her 23-year Senate career.   For the short-term, the bill proposes to capture water from El Niño storms, and to allow water agencies to increase pumping during these storms (without having to reduce pumping later).^[3]  For the long-term, the legislation permits $1.3 billion in funding for western states to desalinate, recycle, and store water.   According to the Los Angeles Times, Feinstein stated that the legislation is the result of bipartisanship between Democrats and Republicans, and extensive conversations with water districts, cities, rural communities, environmental groups, farmers, and fishers.^[4]

Meanwhile, in Santa Barbara, California, officials have put aside more than $50 million to reactivate the city’s decommissioned desalination plant from the early 1990s.^[6]   In November, crews that were working to reactivate the plant found glass, bricks, ceramic, and lead in the soil.  It will cost $1.6 million for the city to remove and replace this soil with new soil, an additional $500,000 to keep the project on schedule, and $200,000 for contingencies.^[7]  The city expects the plant to be operational by the fall of 2016.

Italmatch Chemicals, a leading global chemical group, has entered into an agreement with Belgium’s Solvay S.A., to purchase its desalination and phosphonates and phosphonic acid-based water additives business.^[8]  The agreement covers the acquisition of Solvay’s client portfolio, products, trademarks, and patents.  Italmatch Chemicals’ latest purchase supports the company’s objective to strengthen its position as “a leading global supplier of water management additives.”^[9]  Last year, the company expanded its reach by purchasing the Naples-based GRS Chemical Technologies; and in July 2014, the majority of Italmatch Chemicals was purchased by Mandarin Capital Partners and Ardian, Europe’s largest independent private investment company.

The final day of the International Conference on Desalination and Environment (ICODE 2016) is coming to a close in Qatar.  The nation’s Environment and Energy Research Institute (QEERI) is at the helm of the conference, in collaboration with Elsevier and ConocoPhillips Qatar.  The objective of the conference has been to “address cutting-edge research issues in water treatment and desalination science and techniques.”^[10]   The conference has strong importance for Qatar, which relies on desalinated seawater for 99 percent of its municipal water demand.