Give our rivers a break
Re “Can the ocean solve water crisis?” Nov. 7
Thanks to The Times and reporter Hayley Smith for the important and informative article on water desalination. While the environmental drawbacks of turning ocean water into potable water were discussed, there was less focus on the benefits. For example, think of the huge potential upside of reducing or eliminating Los Angeles’ use of Owens Valley water. Should we really be diverting this precious mountain runoff to fill our swimming pools?
Most of California’s 39 million residents live in coastal areas and could be supplied by desalinated water, leaving our precious snowmelt to fill lakes and rivers, and the Colorado River to recover. And maybe some of our mountain runoff could be used to reverse the mad dash to pump groundwater in the Central Valley for agriculture.
Although it is certainly true that desalination requires a lot of electricity, plants can be timed to operate outside peak demand or only when power is relatively cheap, such as when solar energy is in excess supply.
Current water bills in California have risen significantly in the past few years. Cost-competitive water desalination is within reach.
Jeffrey L. Smith, La Cañada Flintridge
Desalinization has far too many negatives. Nature supplies an abundance of fresh water while not distributing it very well.
After all, oil can be piped from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
Richard Melniker Los Angeles
California has a long coastline and for decades has taken water from the greatly diminished Colorado River. As responsible citizens of the West, we need to be proactive in not only providing water for California residents, but also in helping landlocked states.
The article focused too much on why desalination is not feasible. Not a single political officeholder was quoted. Now that the midterms are past, how about putting some pressure on our politicians to address the worsening water crisis?
Leonard Linton Thousand Oaks
Unless we can truly affect the course of climate change, the water wars between California’s agriculture industry and cities are going to get ugly without desalination. For the plants to work, we can build more solar farms in our deserts and put more solar panels on buildings, and direct the energy to desalination.
As for the leftover brine problem, a species that can tell a machine to make a left turn on Mars should be able to find a way to turn the brine into California sea salt.
Kenny Rich Woodland Hills