Capital costs, desalination, understanding hydrology

Might not sound like interesting stuff, but the above is what I found interesting from today's February 15 meeting. Planned sales of recycled water will not recover the capital costs of building the water treatment facility. This might not be totally unusual in the world of water, but I think it makes it difficult to compare costs of various options - should we invest in recycled water versus invest in conservation, say - if we don't account for all costs. Also, I understand that water retailers want to tap into and sell recycled water. I'd be concerned if, among other things, they got the water at prices that didn't cover capital costs. We'll find out.

Desalination has been treated as a subset of recycled water. It does use similar technology, but everything else about it is different (and worse). I'd like to see it separated out from recycling. There's the interesting issue of whether cancellation of it might damager relations with partner agencies, but I also wonder if there are people in those partner agencies that have the same concern that I'm expressing.

There are apparently some water rights issues related to water recycling. Not sure I understand that yet.

Finally, I would like to better understand how flood analysis is done. I think that might help understand natural flood control and how climate change effects on snow line might affect flooding. I'd also be interested in seeing predictive uses of flooding models.

-Brian

Water recycling is a great idea; water desalination has serious problems

I've been asked a number of times about my opinion on water recycling. I think it's a great opportunity to do more with our existing water supply, rather than constantly searching for new water sources. Water recycling treats used water so it can be reused, currently for landscaping and agriculture (the "purple pipe" we see increasingly in various parts of the County is the separate piping system for recycled water).

It certainly makes much more sense to use recycled water instead of drinking water on landscaping and farmland. The next stage, something already done in southern California, is to purify recycled water and pump it back into the groundwater table, where we can fully reuse it.

So I support the existing programs for recycled water, and the role it has in the Water District budget will allow recycled water to expand. I'd also be interested in even more expansion, but I don't see the Water District's budget expanding anytime soon, so we'd have to figure out where the money would come from to accelerate the process.

Desalination (the process of converting saltwater to freshwater), by contrast, has some significant problems. A huge amount of energy is consumed in the desalination process, making it both expensive and environmentally problematic. The remainder of desalination is a soupy salt brine that creates a big disposal problem, especially for us bordering the shallow San Francisco Bay. Any approach to desalination would have to be done very carefully.

Finally, while I distinguish between water recycling and desalination, the distinction is really a matter of degree. Recycling also consumes energy and also has leftover materials. But being able to think in shades of gray is an important part of policy, which is why water recycling should be more encouraged than desalination. Most important of all though is water conservation, reducing the initial demand, and we can still do a lot more on this issue.