Tuesday Top of the Scroll: Desalination plant proposed for San Francisco Bay
Saying it needs to evaluate all options for new sources of drinking water, Silicon Valley’s largest water district is studying a plan to build the first seawater desalination plant along the shores of San Francisco Bay. The Santa Clara Valley Water District, a government agency based in San Jose, has approved spending $1.7 million for Black & Veatch, a Walnut Creek firm, to conduct an engineering feasibility study over the next 12 months for a project near the bay’s shoreline in Palo Alto, Mountain View or San Jose. Under the proposal, which is still in the early stages, the plant would take between 20 million to 80 million gallons of water a day from the bay, run it through filters to strip the salt out and serve from 10 million to 40 million gallons a day of freshwater to South Bay homes and businesses. That would provide about 11,000 to 44,000 acre-feet of water per year, enough for between 100,000 and 500,000 households.