Water Desalination
Water district looks at pilot facility
Marin Independent Journal,
By Mark Prado
(Reporter)
Monday, July 12, 2004 - Board expects
feasibility report on desalination by July 21.
Marin Municipal Water District officials may
try to build a mini-desalination plant before doing the real thing.
Water officials are considering pulling water
from the bay in order to meet Marin's future water demands and to protect
the county against a drought. Earlier plans to take more water from the
Russian River have been put aside because of uncertainty over how much water
from that source will be available.
But before desalination moves forward, the
water district's board of directors wants to see how the technology might
work. When it meets in a couple of weeks, the board will get details on a
pilot plant, including how much it would cost and how it would work.
"It is essential that we do this to determine
costs and water quality," MMWDboard member Charles McGlashan said. "It will
help us understand the impacts of this type of operation."
The pilot could also produce other important
information, such as how the water would taste.
If all goes to plan, a test plant could be up
and running later this year. McGlashan said the idea is to test water when
there is the least amount of fresh water in the bay at the end of the
summer, and again in the winter when there is the most.
The "plant" is likely to be nothing more than a
set of pipes that could be fenced off, district officials said. The district
hopes to have a water intake at the Marin Rod and Gun Club. Water officials
are discussing the idea with Marin Rod and Gun Club representatives.
"The board will get a full report on the plan
July 21," said Libby Pischel, an MMWD spokeswoman.
A similar test plant was built in 1990 by the
district. Although that test demonstrated that desalinated water tasted
normal and was free of contamination, concerns still persist about its
purity.
A real plant would be built on district-owned
land at Pelican Way in San Rafael, with San Rafael Bay water being pulled in
at the end of a rebuilt Marin Rod and Gun Club pier near the west end of the
Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.
The bay water would be piped west along
existing roads to the plant. The salt pulled from the water would be piped
to the Central Marin Sanitation Agency's wastewater treatment plant and sent
back into the bay. Sludge captured by filters in the process would be
trucked to the Redwood Landfill north of Novato.
The plant could be built in increments - with
each segment able to produce 5 million gallons of water a day - and could
ultimately deliver 15 million gallons of water daily. The desalination
process would convert about half of the volume of raw water taken from the
bay into drinking water.
Blending of brine with treated wastewater from
the Central Marin Sanitation Agency could reduce the concentration of salt
going back into the bay.
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