Marina revives old desal plant to boost drought-resistant water supply
By Felix Cortez
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MARINA, California (KSBW) — The Marina Coast Water District is reviving a 30-year-old desalination plant in Marina to provide an additional 300 acre-feet of water annually to the Monterey Peninsula, enough to support a thousand homes.
“This is the one that was built in 1996,” said a representative from the Marina Coast Water District, Rem Scherzinger. “We’re going to take this package out, get a new one, slide it right in, plug it in, and off we go. So this is literally we’re using the assets that the district built back 25 years ago.”
The reactivated plant is expected to come online next year, providing a drought-resistant water supply. “Droughts are coming and they have been here,” Scherzinger said. “And so we want to make sure that we have a very diverse and drought-resistant, drought-tolerant water supply.”
The first phase involves testing water pressure at its water source, a seawater well on Marina State Beach, which may have many beachgoers wondering what’s going on. It’s all part of the water district’s plan to reduce pumping of groundwater aquifers, sustain water for future growth, and support the multi-billion dollar agricultural industry.
Marina’s mayor, Bruce Delgado, emphasized the importance of the project, saying, “It’s all connected. So with this new 300-acre-feet coming online with desal in Marina, there will be more leftover, this unused leftover for the farmers or conservation, and trying to fight this saltwater intrusion.”
“Every drop helps,” said Scherzinger. “Getting this desalination plant back online is great.”
The Marina Coast Water District initially shut down its desalination plant in 2003 due to high operation costs.
District leaders now believe they can produce fresh water from seawater more cheaply, aligning with the governor’s call two years ago to bring more water sources online.
“After all these years, to be able to utilize something that this community paid for, leverage it for their benefit and to find those efficiencies to drive our water rights and to make sure that our rates stay low and manageable now and into the future. I think it’s the right answer,” Scherzinger said.
Another desalination project by Cal-Am Water is in the planning phase, having received Coastal Commission approval three years ago.
However, it must meet 20 conditions before breaking ground.
This project is expected to generate 5,300 acre-feet of water annually, significantly more than the 300 acre-feet produced by the Marina plant.
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