Desalination plants are being seen as the solution to declines in global freshwater supplies. But as Scott Thill reports, the plants may be an environmental disaster in the making.
[D]esalination plants are popping up all over the world. The British utility Severn Trent, one of 10 water privatization entities in the United Kingdom, is building one for the Maravia Country Club Estates in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. El Paso, Texas, cut the ribbon in August 2007 on the largest inland desalination plant in the world, which mostly benefited the city's Fort Bliss army outpost, which is expanding to accommodate the nation's already depleted military forces.
...Have global desalination efforts, already compromised by technological inefficiencies and overt waste, taken into account the dramatic rise in oceanic acidity? The answer is, not really.
"I do not believe desalination advocates have taken into account the resulting acidification of the ocean that will take place as intensive amounts of salt brine are returned to the seas," Maude Barlow answered. "For every unit of freshwater derived from the process, an equal unit of poisonous salt brine is dumped back into the oceans. Currently, desalination plants produce 5 billion gallons of waste every day. Production of desalination plants is expected to triple by 2015, tripling brine waste dumping and the acidification of the oceans."
And that's just the desalination process itself: Forget about the naturally occurring processes that the climate crisis has introduced into our quickly drying lives. As the planet heats up, the oceans absorb more and more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, causing the seas to summarily heat and expel those gases skyward, creating a destructive feedback loop. When all is said and done, we may be left with not much more than acid after desalinating what we can get our cracked hands on. As Seattle-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oceanographer Richard Feely told Blumenthal, "Everything points to dramatic effects. There are suggestions the entire ecosystem could change over time."
"As a serious answer to the global water crisis, desalination is not the answer," Barlow concluded. "The plants are polluting behemoths, use an incredible amount of energy, add to our climate crisis, and produce toxic brine that kills aquatic life for miles."
FULL STORY: Will the World's Oceans Be Our Next Drinking Tap?
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