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FOR DRINKING WATER IN DROUGHT, CALIFORNIA LOOKS WARILY TO SEA

Summary

This article is written by Justin Gillis, reports on the drinking water in drought, California looks warily to sea. Over the recent past, the water reservoirs in California, Texas, and other parts of the United States have gone down due to persistent droughts. For several years, various parts of the United States and the Middle East have experienced insufficient amounts of water due to low rainfall. As the availability of water in different regions of the United States, particularly California diminished, people have asked themselves why they should suffer yet they live right next to the Pacific Ocean, which can provide an endless supply of water (GILLIS, 2015). As such, positive attitude towards the ability to desalinate ocean water and to make it consumable has grown. Justin Gillis, the author for New York Times, reports that a major city in California is on the verge of transforming salt-filled, seawater into water that is appropriate for domestic use. San Diego is developing a desalination plan worth $1 billion (GILLIS, 2015).

Even as other states such as Texas and countries such as Israel are speedily embracing the concept of desalination of seawater, myriad concerns are cropping up here and there. Environmentally, activists are worried that desalination plants will lead to even greater atmospheric pollution by injecting tones of greenhouse gases that will eventually make the climatic conditions worse than they already are (GILLIS, 2015). In addition, the cost of developing and running a desalination plant is so high that the cost of water will go up, even as supplies increase. Furthermore, various regions have left their multi-million dollar desalination plants to lie in waste as continuous and sufficient rain return (GILLIS, 2015). Therefore, there are also fears that the desalination plant that California is looking to develop may turn into a white elephant project once the rainy season returns. From the energy consumption perspective, fears are that the plants will consume a lot of electricity or power leading to an upsurge in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (GILLIS, 2015).

Critique

It is undeniable that the world is in need of more and more water owing to fast-paced industrialization and ever-growing rate of population growth. As such, supporting the desalination project, as it is an innovative way of ensuring that people have enough water (GILLIS, 2015). While efforts to conserve water and reuse the existing supplies are in order, they fall quite below the rising needs of cities in various places of the globe. In keeping with the unequivocal urgent need for water, nations and cities should embrace desalination plants. The move will ensure that people have enough water for consumption and maintenance of adequate levels of sanitation (GILLIS, 2015). However, desalination plants’ engineers, developers, and environmental activists should show ardent effort in implementing the following recommendations:

· Development of innovative and appropriate ways of conserving, purifying or treating, and reusing existing water resources.

· Harnessing of renewable energy such as wind and solar power to power the power-hungry desalination plants.

· Implementation of environmental conservation measures and pollution prevention measures to reduce further deterioration of the environment.

References

Gillis, J. (2015, April 11). For Drinking Water in Drought, California Looks Warily to Sea. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/science/drinking-seawater-looks-ever-more-palatable-to-californians.html