News
Redwood Shores Desalination Plant a Possibility for Saltworks Water Supply
by Stacie Chan, Redwood City Patch
The developers of the proposed Cargill Saltworks development are looking towards desalination as a potential water supply for its future 30,000 residents. It is one of many options the developer is eyeing to make the project feasible.
The location of the potential desalination plant, however, is yet to be determined, but the DMB-funded consultants have begun looking into the Redwood Shores area north of the San Carlos Airport.
In consultant Hart Howerton’s September report, sent to the city monthly, the consultant listed “preliminary investigation of San Carlos Airport Land Use planning for evaluation of requirements for developing the land north of the airport for desalination facilities.”
...
The city is also still exploring the possibility of water transfer from Kern County.
...
Josh Sonnenfeld of Save the Bay said he was concerned about potential impacts desalination could have on the surrounding natural habitats.
“We don’t know what the intake of all that water will do to wildlife,” he said. “We can’t assume we can just keep taking water from the Bay forever.”
As part of their desalination analysis, consultants had several conference calls discussing a desalination case in San Rafael, which has run into lawsuits and opposition from environmentalists. The Marin Municipal Water District recently appealed the court’s ruling that the environmental impact report did not adequately study impacts to marine life.
Residents of the city of Santa Cruz have similarly begun protests against a desalination plant by circulating a petition...
LTE: Deceptions behind Saltworks
Published in the Palo Alto Daily News
Dear Editor: A Stanford research group recently reported that, for decades, many doctors were paid handsomely to tout the health benefits of smoking tobacco (http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2012/january/tobacco-0123.html).
That led me to think of how Cargill and DMB Associates are currently spreading their money around Redwood City to show how much they “care” about it. I urge those who take that money to think carefully about whether to believe their claims of supposed benefits their proposed Saltworks development would bring to Redwood City.
Can adding 30,000 residents really reduce traffic congestion? Is the solution to current flooding and future sea level rise really to put more residents and businesses below the level of the high tides? Is paving restorable wetlands really the best way to restore them? I don’t think so. Please don’t be deceived by their money.
Karen Davis, Redwood City
City wants desalination looked at for Saltworks
Palo Alto Daily Post
Redwood City wanted a desalination plant included among options to supply water for the proposed 12,000-home Saltworks project, a senior vice president for developer DMB said yesterday.
"Desalination remains both scientifically and politically volatile," David Smith said, citing a successful legal challenge in Marin County to the environmental review of such a project there.
...
The city in 2011 engaged a consultant to review desalination but work was put on hold when Arizona-based DMB sought more time to consider public comments about Saltworks.
Dan Ponti, spokesman for Saltworks opponent Redwood City Neighbors United, said the desalination option shows the challenges Saltworks faces.
"It's very expensive," Ponti said of desalination. "It's very energy intensive." "There are a lot of environmental concerns" about what is done with the salt extracted from the water, he said.
A 2003 review for the city by consultants Kennedy/Jenks concluded that issues including costs and environmental requirements meant desalination was not an option for immediate resolution of the Redwood City water supply needs...
(The above article segment was published in the Thursday, Feb. 9, 2012 edition of the Palo Alto Daily Post. You can view and purchase the full article in the Daily Post's archives at http://www.padailypost.com/)
LTE: Saltworks water
Published in the Palo Alto Daily News
Dear Editor: The proposed use of desalination to solve the problem of providing water to the Saltworks development (The Daily News, Feb. 4) poses even more concerns. A 2003 Redwood City government white paper (www.redwoodcity.org/publicworks/pdf/Desalination_White_Paper.pdf) enumerates significant disadvantages of building a desalination plant in Redwood City, chief among them high operating costs that will remain long after the developer leaves town with huge profits.
Desalination is the most energy-intensive and expensive way of procuring water -- a desalination project in Marin has been delayed by environmental concerns and suffers from a lack of enthusiastic buyers for its much more expensive water. It is also a mistake to assume the desalinated water would only supply the Saltworks development. Who among us would willingly trade our pure Hetch Hetchy drinking water for Bay water?
John Cieslewicz,
Redwood City
Hold the salt: Developer explores using desalinated water for Saltworks project
By Bonnie Eslinger, Palo Alto Daily News
Among many challenges facing the controversial Redwood City Saltworks project, securing water for a community that may have as many as 12,000 homes is high on the list.
DMB Pacific Ventures, a new company owned by Arizona-based DMB Associates that wants to develop Saltworks on Cargill's salt flats, has promised not to tap into Redwood City's limited water supply to hydrate the massive 1,436-acre project, which also would include office buildings, stores, schools, playing fields and restored marshlands.
Until recently, DMB has been focusing on a complex maneuver to transfer the rights to 2.7 billion gallons of water a year purchased from a Bakersfield farming collective to a Bay Area water agency for delivery.
While the transfer strategy is still "on the table," the company also is examining whether delivering ocean or bay water stripped of salt and other minerals is feasible, said David Smith, DMB Associates' senior vice president. That process is known as desalination.
...
A DMB-funded consultant hired by Redwood City to do an environmental study of the Saltworks project began investigating desalination as a feasible option last June, said Blake Lyon, the city's senior planner. Questions such as where a plant would go, how big it might be and whether it should provide water only for Saltworks still have to be answered, he said.
"There's also a lot of work that needs to be done on the environmental implications, whether there's political support for it, and the funding aspects," Lyon said.
But the research was temporarily shelved in November when DMB Associates asked for a timeout while the developer reviews the most recent round of public comments and possibly revises the project.
Smith said the company intends to present a revised plan by "early 2012."
Josh Sonnenfeld, a campaign manager with Oakland-based Save the Bay, said DMB's struggles to secure water for the large-scale community prove the project is impractical.
"There's also enormous numbers of questions we have about desalination, the impacts on the bay, the potential costs to residents and the energy it needs."
The nonprofit has vigorously opposed the Saltworks development plan and advocated for restoration of the area's natural habitat.
