Huntington Beach Named Site of Desalination Unit

Southern California’s giant water agency on Tuesday authorized the first phase of a small, experimental seawater desalination plant expected to be built along the coast in Huntington Beach.

The Metropolitan Water District, which provides most of the region’s water, authorized the planning and development phase of the $1-million plant, which will turn a small quantity of saltwater--2,000 gallons a day--into drinking water. The unit will test technological innovations using steam heat from a power plant to distill seawater.

MWD officials say they are in discussions with Southern California Edison about placing the unit at the electric company’s Huntington Beach power plant. The unit could be running by August.

MWD General Manager Carl Boronkay said the new technology might lower the usually exorbitant cost of desalination.

The cost of water from desalination plants currently operating is more than $2,000 an acre-foot--an amount that meets the needs of two average families for a year.

But Boronkay said MWD believes that it will be able to cut the price to less than half that. The district wholesales imported water at a much lower rate, $261 an acre-foot, but drought has left the area’s major supplies unreliable.

Boronkay said the small plant is designed to determine whether the MWD should build a 5-million-gallon-a-day plant in the mid-1990s big enough to serve 112,000 homes.