Water-rich New England builds … a desalination plant?
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 29, 2008 at 10:28 pmFrom the Christian Science Monitor:
Far from the arid US Southwest and its longstanding water woes, or even the Southeast and its new water skirmishes – attitudes are shifting in lush New England.
That’s right. Despite abundant lakes and good rainfall, weak groundwater resources have crimped economic growth in some areas. As a result, the first big New England desalination plant turning brackish (salt water, fresh water mix) into fresh is expected to go online in Massachusetts this month.
That surprises some people, but not Robert Tannenwald, an economist and director of the New England Public Policy Center at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Two years ago he did a study showing that New England – contrary to public perceptions – is not at all water-rich region, but one that needs to manage its water supplies more carefully and look for new sources. “There’s still a general mind-set [in New England] that water as a resource is not in scarce supply – but it is,” Mr. Tannenwald says. “We waste a lot of water. There’s a lot of leaky pipes around here. So economics has to kick in and water has to be priced accordingly for the waste to stop.”
Initially, the Aquaria desalination plant, hard by the Taunton River a few miles from its mouth on Narragansett Bay, will supply 4 million gallons of fresh water each day to the city of Brockton 16 miles away. Using a reverse-osmosis process, it will filter salt and other impurities from brackish water flowing up the river from the ocean during high tide.
But not everyone is happy about what could become a regional trend. “The fact we are building desalination plants in New England is really a tragedy,” says Christopher Kilian, clean-water program director for the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation. “This is a region that gets an immense amount of precipitation and where fresh water is being squandered. Before we start pouring costly desalinated water into the bucket, we should make the most of what we have and plug the leaks in the pipes.”
Read the full text of this story from the Christian Science Monitor by clicking here.
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One Response to “Water-rich New England builds … a desalination plant?”
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1-In the sojourn for clear water,our quest should be to increase the capacity of desalinated water plants using RO/MBR technology.A breakeven point of plant capacity verses cost per MGD may be taken as the base mark for comparison to make the projects feasible.
2-Higher cost of desalination plants should also be offset by the benefit cost it provides to humanity.
3-RO/MBR technology are to be given more preference than other technologies for harvesting the sea water.
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