The US megadrought!

[Samonadreau]

Plus the brine that is a byproduct of desalination can wreak havoc on an underwater ecosystem

[Azure]

In comparison to ground wells, which are drying up at an alarming rate.

There is no alternative for California if they are to continue supporting their agriculture industry.

I support not growing items like almonds in dry areas that relies on external to California water sources, but I doubt that will end anytime soon if one reads through the ridiculous rules that allow many of those areas to continue pulling water from depleting sources.

Spain uses 22% of their desalinated water for agriculture, and they expect it to keep growing. If California were to convert 20% of the agricultural water needs to desalinated water sources, their water crisis would end.

Also, like you said, waste water treatment, drip irrigation, and MANY other water saving & recovery methods would help as well. However, despite the technology existing to capture & recover waste water, cities like Los Angeles despite being located in a state where the funding should absolutely exist to build out the infrastructure, STILL have no ability to properly treat, recover and reuse their waste water.

[Lanny_McDonald]

An alternative would be aquifer recharge using desalinated water. It's on the table in Arizona. The Governor has held talks with Mexico about the potential for a desalination plant on the Sea of Cortez. It's a drop in the bucket to what is needed, but could be the model of how the west can take on the challenges of replenishing the aquifer. Naysayers talk it down but don't bring solutions themselves. This is a larger problem where lots of small solutions will make up the answer.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald

An alternative would be aquifer recharge using desalinated water. It's on the table in Arizona. The Governor has held talks with Mexico about the potential for a desalination plant on the Sea of Cortez. It's a drop in the bucket to what is needed, but could be the model of how the west can take on the challenges of replenishing the aquifer. Naysayers talk it down but don't bring solutions themselves. This is a larger problem where lots of small solutions will make up the answer.

If you are pumping from the aquifer to get water, what is the purpose of recharging the aquifer just to pump from it? Why wouldn't you just use the water directly?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

If you are pumping from the aquifer to get water, what is the purpose of recharging the aquifer just to pump from it? Why wouldn't you just use the water directly?

I'd imagine large aquifers have many pump stations pulling water from them.

If you just replenish the aquifer all those pump stations can continue pulling from them without needing to rebuild a lot of infrastructure.

Also, aquifers do not have to deal with water evaporation issues, which is something canals and reservoirs struggle with a lot.

Often times replenishing an aquifer is literally as simple as drilling a well and dropping water into it.

Another great thing about this idea is that aquifers tend to remineralize & filter the water if there are limestone and other deposits underneath.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald

An alternative would be aquifer recharge using desalinated water. It's on the table in Arizona. The Governor has held talks with Mexico about the potential for a desalination plant on the Sea of Cortez. It's a drop in the bucket to what is needed, but could be the model of how the west can take on the challenges of replenishing the aquifer. Naysayers talk it down but don't bring solutions themselves. This is a larger problem where lots of small solutions will make up the answer.

Many countries have been dealing with water restriction issues for 50+ years and have built out the infrastructure to create more stability when it comes to availability through wet / dry years.

Why we in the West thing we know better when it comes to these issues is beyond me. Almost every single proposal is met with 25 reasons of why its a terrible idea.

This thread is a small but great example of that.

The naysayers have handicapped our ability to make good decisions, even if the face of serious problems for which solutions absolutely do exist.

"Desalinization does not work for agriculture"
"Spain (and others I'd imagine) use Desalinization to 20% + of their agriculture needs"

"Crickets...."

Not picking on you opendoor, but I'd imagine that is how many conversations are going in California these days when it comes to dealing with this crisis.

[GGG]

If you being to use desalination on agriculture rather than just put in sensible watering restrictions the types of crops grown will shift to only the highest value crops. This is already occurring with the costs of wells to reach deeper into the ground water.

The California problem is that they don’t price water so you have a tradgrdy of the commons. Technology isn’t going to solve that. Once water has a cost associated with it if Desalination can be competitive it will be built. But once water has a price the cost for individuals goes up significantly as well which can create challenges but at least it gets rid of lawns.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Azure

This thread is a small but great example of that.

The naysayers have handicapped our ability to make good decisions, even if the face of serious problems for which solutions absolutely do exist.

"Desalinization does not work for agriculture"
"Spain (and others I'd imagine) use Desalinization to 20% + of their agriculture needs"

"Crickets...."

Not picking on you opendoor, but I'd imagine that is how many conversations are going in California these days when it comes to dealing with this crisis.

It'd help if you recognized the difference between these two concepts:

a) using 20% of desalinated water for agriculture

b) using desalinated water for 20% of agricultural water needs

Because you used them interchangeably above, when they're very different things:

Originally Posted by Azure

Spain uses 22% of their desalinated water for agriculture, and they expect it to keep growing. If California were to convert 20% of the agricultural water needs to desalinated water sources, their water crisis would end.

Originally Posted by Azure

"Spain (and others I'd imagine) use Desalinization to 20% + of their agriculture needs"

In reality, Spain's desalination plants produce only a tiny portion of Spain's overall water usage. Based on the numbers I've seen, they put out about 1.8B m3 per year, while Spain uses somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-35B m3 a year, so that would be ~5% of total water usage. Since agriculture uses 80% of Spain's water and only 20% of desalinated water ended up being used for agriculture, that means that desalination provided slightly over 1% of Spain's water used in agriculture. At that tiny amount, the high cost of it is less of an issue. But as the percentage grows it becomes cost prohibitive.

And even for non-agriculture uses, the high cost has been an issue. Even during water shortages many of the plants haven't been used because of the expense:

https://www.waternewseurope.com/spai...remain-closed/

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/10/b...s-unravel.html

[DownInFlames]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/09/o...vironment.html

[CroFlames]

I got one of those teeny tiny complimentary water bottles on a flight today.

The label says WATER SOURCE: Diamond Bar, California.

Diamond Bar. A suburb of LA. They are commercially bottling water in a suburb of LA.

Are there no better places to source water, like say, the Columbia River valley where it constantly ####ing rains?

[TherapyforGlencross]

Originally Posted by Azure

I'd imagine large aquifers have many pump stations pulling water from them.

If you just replenish the aquifer all those pump stations can continue pulling from them without needing to rebuild a lot of infrastructure.

Also, aquifers do not have to deal with water evaporation issues, which is something canals and reservoirs struggle with a lot.

Often times replenishing an aquifer is literally as simple as drilling a well and dropping water into it.

Another great thing about this idea is that aquifers tend to remineralize & filter the water if there are limestone and other deposits underneath.

Studies have been conducted on injecting water into aquifers, albeit using surface water.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2015/5054/sir20155054.pdf

May you expand on your idea of remineralization into the aquifer by limestone/calcite dissolution? I see what you’re saying, but I believe that would take time for dissolution to occur.