THE DROUGHT : Desalination Called Affordable Source of New Water

Desalination of seawater could become an affordable and useful tool for Ventura County and other areas struggling to find new water sources during the state’s prolonged drought, a San Diego water consultant said Wednesday.

Removing salt from the sea costs half of what it did when the method was first introduced commercially 20 years ago, and the cost is continuing to drop as other water alternatives become more expensive, Richard Sudak told a meeting of water experts in Ventura.

Reverse osmosis, a form of desalinating water by pumping it through tiny plastic membranes, can reclaim water from brackish wells, municipal, industrial and agricultural waste water as well as the ocean, said Sudak, president of Separation Processes of San Diego.

“There’s an enormous supply of seawater out there.” Reverse osmosis “is a tool for you to improve your water supply,” he told about 50 members of the Channel Counties Water Utilities Assn.

The association, a private trade group of almost 200 members, invites water experts to speak at its monthly meetings of private engineers, consultants and water company officials.

Desalinating water from brackish wells costs between $350 and $600 per acre-foot, while desalinating water from the sea costs between $1,600 and $2,000 per acre-foot, Sudak said, adding that those figures include maintenance costs. Brackish well water is underground water contaminated by salt but not as contaminated as seawater, he said.

Local well water costs in Ventura County range from $100 to $300 per acre-foot, said Gerard Kapuscik, general manager of the Channel Islands Beach Community Services District. And if officials built a dam at Sespe Creek, water would cost at least $1,200 per acre-foot, Kapuscik said.

Desalination “is an option that we’re really excited about. Not only is the process technologically feasible, but it may have cost-efficient benefits for Ventura agencies,” he said.

Ventura City Councilman Gary Tuttle said he attended the luncheon meeting as part of a “fact-finding mission” to explore alternatives to transporting water from other parts of the state. The costs Sudak quoted reaffirmed his interest in desalination, he said.

“I’ve made no secret that I’m looking to taking our water solutions to the 21st Century and not looking at archaic methods,” Tuttle said. “I see technology solving a lot of the problems.”