In Australia, officials in the state of Victoria have placed a “controversial” $27 million order for desalinated water—even though water levels have surged in dams across the state.^[1]  Water Minister Lisa Neville explained that high rainfall at this time of year did not preclude the need for the year-round “insurance policy” that the Wonthaggi Desalination plant provides.  Minister Neville also stated that Aquasure, the plant’s operator, would charge Victoria’s residents a hefty price if the government had cancelled its order. 

Meanwhile, the state government of India’s Mumbai and Mumbai Metropolitan Region has decided to set up its first pilot project for a desalination facility in the city of Thane.^[2]  The Thane Municipal Corporation is collaborating with local experts from Pune University, to create a detailed report for the proposed project, which will use reverse osmosis technology.  In 2012, the state government cancelled plans to set up a desalination plant due to the projected costs of desalinated water.^[3]  Since then, the intensification of water scarcity in nearly 5,000 villages across the region has prompted leaders to investigate the feasibility of desalination once again.

In the Netherlands, the Dutch desalination company, Voltea, has secured a €6 million investment.  Voltea will use the investment to “‘accelerate commercialisation’ of its electro-desalination membrane capacitive deionization” technology; this device, which is “the size of a coffee cup,” removes “salts and other dissolved solids from water by applying electric fields across the water flow.”^[4]  The company also plans to hire people for its engineering and sales divisions, and to construct an “automated, robotic module assembly facility.”^[5] 

 ^{Trinidad and Tobago  Credit: Desalination.biz}

Earlier this week, in Trinidad and Tobago, a collapsed pipeline at the Pt Lisas Desalination Plant left residents without water.  During emergency repairs on Wednesday, the Trinidad and Tobago Water and Sewage Authority redistributed water from the Navet Water Treatment Plant and Point Fortin Desalination Plant.^[6]