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 The action, which sets uniform standards for minimizing harm to
marine life, was welcomed by developers of the state's two largest
desalination projects as bringing much-needed certainty and clarity
to the regulatory approval process.
"It reaffirms that the Pacific Ocean is part of the drinking water
resources for the state of California," Poseidon Water executive
Scott Maloni told Reuters after the rule was enacted on a voice vote
in Sacramento by the State Water Resources Control Board.
The measure leaves the permitting process in the hands of the
state's regional water boards while establishing a single framework
for them to follow in evaluating applications to build seawater
treatment plants, expand existing ones and renew old permits.
But regional decisions could now be appealed to the state board for
review if opponents of a project felt a permit was wrongly approved.
Before Wednesday's action, developers and regulators of desalination
plants had no specific guidance for meeting federal and state clean
water standards, complicating review of the projects, state water
board spokesman George Kostyrko said.
Desalination has emerged as a promising technology in the face of a
record dry spell now gripping California for a fourth straight year,
depleting its reservoirs and aquifers and raising the costs of
importing water from elsewhere.
Critics have cited ecological drawbacks, such as harm to marine life
from intake pipes that suck water into the treatment systems and the
concentrated brine discharge from the plants.
The newly approved plan sets specific brine salinity limits and
rules for diffusing the discharge as it is pumped back into to the
ocean.
It also requires seawater to be drawn into the plants through pipes
that are sunk into beach wells or buried beneath the sea floor,
where possible. Such subsurface intakes are viewed as more
environmentally friendly.
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The Western Hemisphere's biggest desalination plant, a $1 billion
project under construction since 2012 in the coastal city of
Carlsbad, California, is due to open in November.
It will deliver up to 50 million gallons (190 million liters) of
water a day to San Diego County, enough to supply roughly 112,000
households, or about 10 percent of San Diego County's drinking water
needs, according to Poseidon.
Approval is being sought for a final permit to begin construction of
a second plant of similar size in Huntington Beach, south of Los
Angeles, next year.
About a dozen much smaller desalting plants have already been built
along the coast, state water officials said.
On Tuesday, the state water board enacted California's first rules
for mandatory statewide cutbacks in municipal water use . The
emergency regulations, which require some communities to trim water
consumption by as much as 36 percent, were approved unanimously just
weeks after Democratic Governor Jerry Brown stood in a dry mountain
meadow and ordered statewide rationing.
(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Writing and additional reporting by
Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Bill Trott, Mohammad Zargham
and Peter Cooney)
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