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DesalData Weekly - June 23rd, 2016

Posted 23 June, 2016 by Mandy

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The Episkopi Desalination Plant in 2013  Credit: Cyprus Mai

The Cypriot government will spend approximately €50 million on desalinated water this year.[1]  The reservoirs in Cyprus are currently at 34 percent of their capacity—23 percent less full than they were last year at this time.  Faring worst among the country’s dams is the largest one, the Kouris, which is now at 16 percent capacity.  

Despite this intensive water scarcity, Andreas Manoli, the director of the water development department, has said that the state will not cut water supplies to the public, including farmers.  Instead, Cyprus has budgeted an additional €10 million more on desalinated water for this year (compared to last year); and government leaders have plans to diversify their water supply.  The country’s Agriculture Minister, Nicos Kouyialis, has pledged to make use of all recycled water that is produced in urban wastewater stations within the next seven years.[2]

 

In India, administrators of the Dakshina Kannada district plan to build a desalination plant in the city of Mangaluru (also known as Mangalore) in response to water shortages.[3]  The proposed plant would supply desalinated water for industrial use. 

In a meeting last month, industry representatives indicated that they would establish a company to develop the project.  They have already appointed a “nodal officer” for the scheme—whose job it will be to consult with the heads of major industries, assess total water usage, and investigate the necessary conditions for the construction of the plant (i.e. identifying the plant’s location, energy consumption, and environmental compliance).  Upon the plant’s completion, Kannada district industries will be able to purchase water from the company.[4]

 

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The Carlsbad Desalination Plant  Credit: Voice of San Diego

 

California’s Carlsbad desalination plant does not yet draw water directly from the Pacific Ocean.[5]  Instead, it retrieves water from the adjacent Encina Power Station, which will shut down in 2017.  This means that the Carlsbad plant will need its own intake system.  Although Poseidon Water, the plant’s developer, promoted Carlsbad as “fully permitted”—the plant still needs permit modification to build the new intake and thereby continue its operations.   Julia Chunn-Heer, policy director at the Surfrider Foundation’s San Diego chapter, reported to the Voice of San Diego that Poseidon was “fully permitted with temporary permits for a situation that everybody knew would change.”[6]

Complicating matters further, the plant is “facing claims from regulators” that it is “having a larger effect on greenhouse gas emissions than its developers promised.”[7]  Officials at the Coastal Commission are concerned that Poseidon is not upholding claims it made in its greenhouse gas reduction plan—in which it stated that the Carlsbad would be a “carbon-neutral plant” because it would provide “direct, one-to-one replacement of imported water” and eliminate “the need to pump 56,000 acre feet of water into the region”; thereby overriding San Diego’s reliance on the State Water Project (a system of “canals, pipelines, and reservoirs” that transports water from Northern California to Southern California). 

Poseidon has not (yet) documented any reduction of San Diego’s dependence on this water system; which means that Poseidon may have to pay several hundred thousand dollars per year “to buy about 50,000 tons of carbon credits needed to remain a carbon-neutral plant” for Coastal Commission regulators.[8]

 

 

[1] Annette Chrysostomou, “Low Rainfall Means Greater Reliance on Pricey Desalinated Water,” June 13, 2016, <http://cyprus-mail.com/2016/06/13/low-rainfall-means-greater-reliance-pricey-desalinated-water/> accessed June 16, 2016.

[2] Ibid.

[3] “Desalination plant proposed in city to supply water to industries,” The Hindu, May 26, 2016, <http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Mangalore/desalination-plant-proposed-in-city-to-supply-water-to-industries/article8648106.ece> accessed May 31, 2016.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ry Rivard, “Desalination Plant Again Faces Environmental Questions,” Voice of San Diego, June 20, 2016, <http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/science-environment/desalination-plant-faces-environmental-questions/> accessed June 20, 2016.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

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