A document obtained by the Kansas City Star and the News Tribune could potentially bode well for two important, and unreasonably delayed, water projects in the Southland.
One of those projects is the is the Huntington Beach desalination plant. The document, “purportedly leaked from the Trump administration indicates that the proposed desalination plant in Huntington Beach is among 50 infrastructure projects nationwide that the president has designated as a priority,” the Register reported.
These pages have long supported the effort in Huntington Beach, which would produce 50 million gallons per day of drinkable water, enough for roughly 300,000 residents. Unfortunately, that project is winding its way through the California environmental process, with environmental groups aiming to thwart it every step of the way. Federal involvement seems unlikely, but it is nice to know that attention is being paid to local water needs.
“Another California project that could get fast tracked, however, is the Cadiz Valley water project, which promises to tap into an underwater Marsbahis reservoir in the desert and requires the oversight of federal agencies including the Bureau of Land Management,” the Register reported. “That project could create nearly 6,000 jobs and would cost $250 million, according to the leaked document.”
Cadiz project proponents argue that pumping out 50,000 acre-feet of water per year from under the Mojave Desert, which would otherwise largely evaporate, would save Southern California $6.1 billion over a 50-year period, and could provide 100,000 Southern California families, in six counties, another supply of water every year.
That project, too, has seen its fair share of roadblocks, from environmental groups to a Texas-based oil company with a nearby strip-mining facility to a government employee insider trading scandal.
Politicians have paid a lot of lip service to the need for finding new water sources and storage, particularly during our recent drought. It is refreshing to see that two important local water projects could potentially be significant priorities under the new Trump administration. They should be priorities on the state and local levels as well.
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