The News Review:

- Coastal towns de-salt water
- MTBE still fouls half of Calif. city’s water
- Water woes could mean new dams – Environment – TODAYshow.com
- Conflict seen in smelt rules

Coastal towns de-salt water
News & Observer – Mar 3, 2008
5 million gallons per day — enough to slake the thirst of a town the size of Goldsboro. They’ll produce water by filtering salt from brackish water drawn from deep wells. That will bolster existing supplies of fresh water and help meet the need for more water in the growing communities. “We’re having to go to lesser-quality source waters, including brackish water on our coastal areas,” said Fred Hill, a regional supervisor with the state’s Public Water Supply Section. “We’re getting a lot of demand for development, and people are expecting higher-quality water. “North Carolina already has about a dozen water plants on the coast that remove salt from water using a process called reverse osmosis — and at least five more are planned. Pumps force brackish water under pressure through a series of fine filters to remove salt…
“We were having to put so many wells around the county that we started looking at other sources,” said Randy Keaton, the Pasquotank County manager. “In our area of the state, if you drill very deep, you hit salt water. “Production and treatment costs vary greatly among water systems. William Koros, a professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech, said the cost to consumers of conventional water treatment ranges from 90 cents to $2. 50 per 1,000 gallons, citing a report by the National Research Council. By comparison, the report put the cost of treating brackish water at $1. 50 to $3 per 1,000 gallons.

MTBE still fouls half of Calif. city’s water
Baltimore Sun – Mar 3, 2008
But because MTBE has a harsh, turpentine-like odor that some people can detect at minute levels, the EPA recommends keeping it below 20 to 40 parts per billion – the range at which many people can smell or taste it. “A lot of it has to do with the faith people put in their drinking water,” says Gilbert M. , the city’s water resources manager. “They expect it to be palatable – not only to look clean, but taste and smell clean. Known leaks So by mid-1996, Santa Monica shut down its Charnock well field, and two wells elsewhere that also showed evidence of MTBE contamination.

Water woes could mean new dams – Environment – TODAYshow.com
msn.com – Mar 3, 2008
Ironically, consideration of new dams comes even as older ones are being torn down across the country because of environmental concerns — worries that will likely pose big obstacles to new construction. In Oregon, a proposed deal would remove four dams on the Klamath River to restore struggling salmon runs. There are lots of other ideas for increasing water supplies in the West. They include conservation, storing water in natural underground aquifers, pipelines to carry water from the mountains, desalination plants to make drinking water from the ocean, small dams to serve local areas. Most of those ideas are much more popular than big new dams. Washington’s Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire put together a coalition of business, government and environmental groups to create the Columbia River Management Plan, which calls for spending $200 million to study various proposals for finding more water for arid eastern Washington.

Conflict seen in smelt rules
Sacramento Bee – Mar 3, 2008
‘: Water users who benefit most from tapping the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta have been given an unprecedented role in drafting new rules to manage water diversions. All Rights Reserved…
Wanger, in his ruling, didn’t specify who should rewrite the rules. The decision also applies to its co-defendant, the state Department of Water Resources, which operates the other diversion system, and its contractors. “It indicates to me the agencies are still continuing to view the Delta as a big faucet, and their main concern is simply water supply,” said Kate Poole, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the environmental groups suing the agencies. “They should be opening the door to many more interested parties, not just the ones who have a financial interest in harming the smelt. “Water contractors are urban and agricultural agencies that sell Delta water to farms and cities from San Jose to San Diego. They include small-scale diverters and big players such as the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and Westlands Water District. The water agencies said their participation is legal and appropriate under the Endangered Species Act, which governs the process.