VENTURA : Desalination to Be Discussed at Meeting

The president of a California firm that has built 100 desalination plants will speak at a public meeting Wednesday organized by supporters of a proposed Ventura desalination plant.

Art Whipple, president of Aqua Design of Campbell, Calif., will explain the process of converting seawater to drinking water. Whipple will speak at 5:30 p.m. at the Poinsettia Pavilion, 3451 Foothill Road in Ventura.

Whipple’s company has constructed desalination plants in Morro Bay and San Simeon, as well as 35 plants in island nations in the Caribbean Basin.

Whipple was invited to speak by Desal Water, a group of Ventura residents who advocate desalination as a way to expand the city’s water supply. In a non-binding measure on the November ballot, Ventura voters will be asked to choose between a desalination plant and a pipeline to the State Water Project.

In a study commissioned by the city of Ventura, a consultant estimated that a desalination plant would cost the city $55.1 million, while a pipeline to import state water would cost $36.8 million.

The desalination process is expensive because of the energy required to force pure water through synthetic filters that remove salt and other minerals.

But in an interview Monday, Whipple described the consultant’s estimate as excessive, saying that desalination has reached a point where the cost is competitive with that of other sources of water in California.