Did you notice?

Jim Gardner sent in a letter touting desalination as a panacea for water shortages in the Antelope Valley, (“Water woes”, Nov. 10). He wrote, “New technologies make seawater conversion affordable. San Diego is doing it, so why not everywhere else in the state.” However, his letter was short on details.

The Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant was built by Poseidon Water. The project started in 1993 after 5 years of drought. It took 14 years to permit, design, and build. Initial cost estimates were a quarter-billion dollars. Cost of construction was funded by bond sales. The plant opened on December 14, 2015 with a final cost of $1 billion.

At the beginning of the project, the San Diego County Water Authority signed a contract with the plant operator to purchase a minimum 48,000 acre-feet per year of water. The cost of water from the plant is $100 to $200 more per acrefoot than recycled water, and $1,000 to $1,100 more than reservoir water. The Desal Response Group, a conglomerate of California-based environmentalist groups, claims the plant will cost San Diego County $108 million a year.

Originally, outflow from the plant had been put into the discharge from the Encina Power Plant for dilution, for a final salt concentration about 20% higher than seawater.

But since the Encina Power station has gone offline, dredging of the Aqua Hedionda Lagoon has now become the responsibility of Poseidon Water. Without dredging at the mouth of the lagoon, it would revert to being a pre-1952 mudflat.

San Diego County gets only 7% of its water from desalination.

The Sierra Club maintains that “Desalination is the most environmentally damaging, energy intensive and expensive water supply option.”

Finally, did you notice that the AV is at a high elevation with no coastline?

Art Sirota Lancaster