It is my understanding that Governor Brown wants the high-speed train to be his legacy. I have another idea for a better legacy that will benefit all Californians, as opposed to a much smaller percent of the state’s population that could potentially use the high-speed train that is estimated to cost $68 billion.
I would like to see our Governor use our money prudently and invest in California water infrastructure instead, including but not limited to the following:
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Strategically locate new dams (much of our rain water now runs into the ocean).
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Develop processes so the sewage from water treatment plants can be used for irrigation needs.
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Strategically locate new desalination plants along our coast, while cutting burdensome regulations to facilitate construction.
President John F. Kennedy said, and I quote; “If we could ever competitively, at a cheap rate, get freshwater from saltwater… (This) would be in the long range interests of humanity which would really dwarf any other scientific accomplishment.”
California has great scientific and engineering resources in Silicon Valley that can further develop this technology for this purpose, if the Governor has the political will to do it.
A new desalination plant is currently being built in Carlsbad, California, at a cost of $1 billion. The contractor is IDE Technologies, one of Israel’s most prominent desalination companies.
Israel now has four desalination plants operating on the Mediterranean Sea and one under construction. They are currently producing approximately 35 percent of their tap water from the Mediterranean, and in just five years.
The following excerpt from an article on the blog “Depleted Cranium” in 2014 offers this view of desalination:
“The only negative environmental consequence associated with desalination is the need to dispose of the highly concentrated non-toxic brine that is produced. If it were to be discharged directly into the ocean, it would result in the area around the discharge becoming too salty for most marine life. This is certainly not an unmanageable problem. Some options include recycling the brine into a useful product. For example, it can be used to produce saltcrete, (saltcrete is a mixture of cement with salts and brine. Its primary role is to immobilize hazardous waste) or, it can be further concentrated and then dried into salt which can be sold commercially.
“Furthermore, the economics of desalination have been improving steadily over the years. With increasing demand for water, a great deal has been invested in desalination research and development. New plants are constantly being built with ever-increasing efficiency and improved economics. In recent years, major improvements have been made to reverse osmosis based desalination systems, which are now being deployed on an industrial scale.”
Investing in the aforementioned would be great for our state and far less expensive than a high-speed, bullet train.
And, before any irrational environmentalists start screaming, I wonder how many burrowing owls, tiger salamanders, red legged frogs, desert tortoises, giant, and Fresno kangaroo rats, and the list goes on (check the California endangered animals listing), will be killed and displaced as the high-speed rail train construction rips through our countryside, not to mention people being displaced from their homes, ranches, and farms.
Doug Wilber is married and has four children and seven grandchildren. He retired after a 32-year career with Hewlett-Packard company in Silicon Valley and is a 42-year resident of Gilroy. He wrote this column for the Gilroy Dispatch
