PETER GUINTA
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 09/24/09
MARINELAND -- Engineers and water experts planning the Coquina Coast Seawater Desalination Project said Wednesday night that their first report, due in January, will say whether the complex will be based on land or on a 900-foot ship offshore.
Five consultants working on this project held a panel discussion at Whitney Lab on Wednesday to discuss the progress made on the $1.2 billion plant, which probably will be built in Flagler County.
About 60 local residents attended.
Jerry Salsano, a consultant hired by St. Johns River Water Management District, said groundwater sources are nearing depletion due to growth, so alternative sources of water must be found.
"These can take eight to 10 years to come on line," he said. "Sources we've been using in this region for quite some time are not sustainable into the future. Florida's got 1,260 miles of coastline. It will look to the sea."
The partners in the project include the Water Authority of Volusia; Flagler, Marion and St. Johns counties; Dunes Community Development District; plus the cities of Palm Coast, DeLand, Mount Dora, Leesburg, Bunnell and Flagler Beach.
The district pledged $5 million toward construction and has been planning this since 2005.
The report determining what kind of plant, land or sea, ends the first phase. The second phase, testing and preliminary design, begins next year and ends 2013.
Final design and construction is scheduled from 2014 to 2017.
Salsano said that, if the plant isn't built, cities and counties would look toward the Ocklawaha and St. Johns rivers for water.
Consultant Ed Buchon said 6.7 billion gallons of desalinated water per day are used globally.
"There are ways to do this without impact to the environment," he said.
He added that to get the water to all the project members would involve 190 miles of pipe.
"That could be phased in over time," he said.
The question of whether the plant should be land or sea based may be decided on cost alone.
From a land-based plant, the cost would be $5.22 to $6.08 per 1,000 gallons. From the vessel, those prices would range from $9.03 to $9.14 per 1,000 gallons.
Jorge Aguilar, a member of Food and Water Watch, a Washington, D.C., consumer advocacy organization, said that desalination is very energy intensive and that only about 50 percent of the seawater taken into the plant is made into drinking water.
The rest remains in a brine solution that the plant would pump back into the ocean.
"You said they won't kill any fish, but there are microorganisms that are taken up, and a lot of marine life relies on those microorganisms," Aguilar said.
Buchon said the plant was not a "done deal," and that's why scientists and water experts were investigating these early phases.
"Some of the partners will know that at the end of Phase I they can opt out or stay in," he said.
The first desal plant was built in the Middle East in 1975 and there are 1,500 worldwide today.
Hal Wilkering of the district staff said that conservation can do a lot, and the district is implementing a $5 million plan, sharing the cost with utilities, to reduce landscape irrigation.
"But it's hard to predict what benefit we will get," he said. "How much water supplies we develop will depend in part how we do in conservation."
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