A third water desalination site is being studied by the city of Corpus Christi, with preliminary conclusions and data expected in the upcoming weeks.
The proposal would develop a plant capable of generating 20 million gallons of water per day in the Barney Davis Power Plant area, near Flour Bluff.
The district study estimated the project could cost $122 million to nearly $194 million to construct and produce about 5,325 acre-feet of water per year for the district at a cost of $1,800 to $2,900 per acre-foot.
The low-interest loan is intended to help the plant’s owner, Poseidon Resources, satisfy state regulations for protecting fish and other marine life at the Claude “Bud” Lewis plant. The money, awarded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is estimated to save ratepayers about $54 million.
The Carlsbad Desalination Plant is touted as the „largest, most technologically advanced and energy-efficient desalination plant in the nation,“ and has produced more than 100 billion gallons of drinking water for San Diego County since operations began in December 2015, officials said.
The desalination plant in Carlsbad will receive $170 million in federal financing to upgrade its facility and meet environmental requirements, officials announced this week.
The project has been approved by the California Coastal Commission and the State Lands Commission. The desalination plant will use subsurface slant wells to draw seawater in from beneath the ocean floor and pump it to the treatment facility, where it will undergo reverse osmosis and disinfection to produce clean drinking water.
SLO’s first phase is gathering information and seeing what other water agencies might want to purchase the potable water produced by the seawater desalination facility, said Matt Young, Santa Barbara County’s water agency manager.
There’s no financial commitment for participating in this preliminary phase of the project, Young added.
The plant, developed by Poseidon and operated by IDE Technologies, has produced more than 100 billion gallons of desalinated seawater since it opened in December 2015, providing San Diego County with 10% of its water supply each year, according to the preliminary limited offering memorandum.
The company’s technology uses a strong base to turn CO2 in the atmosphere into minerals. It differentiates itself from other carbon capture projects in its ability to use its technology in combination with other industrial processes such as water desalination plants, as opposed to standalone carbon capture plants like those used by Climeworks in Iceland.
On Tuesday, the port authority’s guiding commission voted 5-2 in favor of paying $62,025 in permitting fees to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, effectively kicking off the permit process seeking permission to intake seawater for the proposed 50 million-gallon-per-day facility.