S
shegrowsbig
- 23
- 3
55 Gallon blue barrels from US Plastic.
Cali water shortage, What`s at stake for MMJ ?
- Status
Muckman420
- 738
- 143
I thought collecting rain water was illegal, at least in Cali but we still do it.
Bulldog11
- 2,709
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edit
Last edited:
mojavegreen
- 707
- 243
@Bulldog11
not sure we wanna bog this thread down with politics.
not sure we wanna bog this thread down with politics.
Bulldog11
- 2,709
- 263
Didn't think that was politics, thanks for looking out for me mojavegreen. Post has been edited.
Bulldog11
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Do you just let the water sit in the barrels? Do you have lids on them? Don't have to add a bleach solution if storing for a while?
Reason I ask is part of my water plan involves a 20,000 gal military bladder and don't want my water going bad while being stored. I am new at the water storage thing.
Seamaiden
Living dead girl
- 23,596
- 638
Water doesn't go bad. It can become polluted, but in a sealed container only a small amount of chlorine or chloramine is required to keep it free from microbes.
Furthermore, let's go with they broke the law and caused harm. So we get to sue! Who has the deeper pockets? The polluting fracking company, or the individuals whose water has been poisoned? You ever start up a class action suit, or been party to something like that? I have (for an unrelated issue). I can talk about how it works.
I honestly would like you to learn more about Hinkley, California. Things like acceptable levels of chromium-3 can, and are, manipulated by the polluters. So, now what's illegal? And why is illegal more important than actual health?
Furthermore, let's go with they broke the law and caused harm. So we get to sue! Who has the deeper pockets? The polluting fracking company, or the individuals whose water has been poisoned? You ever start up a class action suit, or been party to something like that? I have (for an unrelated issue). I can talk about how it works.
No! Get thee familiar with the California Rainwater Reclamation Act of 2012! :D
Bulldog11
- 2,709
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I knew water doesn't go bad per say, you can always filter or boil the water and catch the condensation. Obviously that isn't an option for a 20,000 gallon bladder. You did answer my question, and it was what I assumed. You do have to treat the water with a bleach solution. Wonder if that means a second holding tank in which the chlorine could be bubbled off is needed? I grow all organic, and hate chlorine, chlorimine and fluoride.
So in theory, a law is made by a governing agency with the mindset of keeping whatever being regulated safe. So you ask what happens when these regulations are manipulated by the polluters.....well the people get screwed most likely. In a perfect world, a world where ethics out weigh profits, this is a no brainier. Things are never white and black however.
We can say this about so many things....
Vaccines. Vaccines help prevent serious illness. Yet when Vaccines are doubled and tripled up (given at the same time) they exceed safe levels of Mercury and other pollutants. Don't make me go into the fact that the CDC has admitted to administering 70 million polio vaccines with SV-40, a cancer causing agent. Long story short, they found out many years later that SV-40 which is added to Polio vaccines causes cancer. Once that study came out, the CDC took off all information involving SV-40 from their website. Too bad many people had already taken screen shots to prove this. NOw they are spending millions of dollars telling people SV-40 doesn't cause cancer........Caught red handed and it doesn't matter if you have money to hide it. (like you said Seamaiden)
Water. Water is treated with fluoride. Fluoride was the main gas used in Nazi Germany's death camps to keep the prisoners subdue. People say it's added to water to keep our teeth healthy......(dad is a dentist and I have plenty of scientific journals that prove this is untrue. If that isn't enough, why do they add fluoride to infant baby water for formula? Kids have no teeth at that point) Now it may be added to the water at safe levels for drinking.......What about how much we take in while showering? When water is hot and vapor our bodies take in much more than when we drink a glass of water. What about the crops being grown with Fluoride? How much do cows take into their bodies? How much do we intake from the animals we eat? So is it still safe when we compound all these other factors?
Like I keep saying, it isn't a black and white world. I just like fully exploring both sides of an argument before I make up my mind. Thanks for providing me with information on this argument, helps me a lot.
So in theory, a law is made by a governing agency with the mindset of keeping whatever being regulated safe. So you ask what happens when these regulations are manipulated by the polluters.....well the people get screwed most likely. In a perfect world, a world where ethics out weigh profits, this is a no brainier. Things are never white and black however.
We can say this about so many things....
Vaccines. Vaccines help prevent serious illness. Yet when Vaccines are doubled and tripled up (given at the same time) they exceed safe levels of Mercury and other pollutants. Don't make me go into the fact that the CDC has admitted to administering 70 million polio vaccines with SV-40, a cancer causing agent. Long story short, they found out many years later that SV-40 which is added to Polio vaccines causes cancer. Once that study came out, the CDC took off all information involving SV-40 from their website. Too bad many people had already taken screen shots to prove this. NOw they are spending millions of dollars telling people SV-40 doesn't cause cancer........Caught red handed and it doesn't matter if you have money to hide it. (like you said Seamaiden)
Water. Water is treated with fluoride. Fluoride was the main gas used in Nazi Germany's death camps to keep the prisoners subdue. People say it's added to water to keep our teeth healthy......(dad is a dentist and I have plenty of scientific journals that prove this is untrue. If that isn't enough, why do they add fluoride to infant baby water for formula? Kids have no teeth at that point) Now it may be added to the water at safe levels for drinking.......What about how much we take in while showering? When water is hot and vapor our bodies take in much more than when we drink a glass of water. What about the crops being grown with Fluoride? How much do cows take into their bodies? How much do we intake from the animals we eat? So is it still safe when we compound all these other factors?
Like I keep saying, it isn't a black and white world. I just like fully exploring both sides of an argument before I make up my mind. Thanks for providing me with information on this argument, helps me a lot.
Muckman420
- 738
- 143
Great thing to know, we heard of a few people who got a fine for collecting rainwater last year, not sure why or if it was true. Been collecting rain since I was a kid, one year in beakers field the rain water during spring in 2009 or 10 it was slightly brown so I never drank it out in Bakersfield.
Seamaiden
Living dead girl
- 23,596
- 638
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120AB1750
They shouldn't be fining them, as far as I can tell. BUT! That location, being SO agriculturalized, may have grandfathered rules in place similar to OR's and CO's.
They shouldn't be fining them, as far as I can tell. BUT! That location, being SO agriculturalized, may have grandfathered rules in place similar to OR's and CO's.
markscastle
Well-Known Farmer
- 4,825
- 263
I prefer water distillation and filtration my self. cuts down on much of the crap in water. Don`t like to use additives.
Bulldog11
- 2,709
- 263
Care to elaborate Mark? What set up are you talking about when you distill the water or filter it? Large volumes or just indoor stuff? Thanks.
SpiderK
- 2,339
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Radioactive Waste Booms With Fracking as New Rules Mulled
Oilfield's are spinning off thousands of tons of low-level radioactive trash as the U.S. drilling boom leads to a surge in illegal dumping and states debate how much landfills can safely take
State regulators are caught between environmental and public health groups demanding more regulation and the industry, which says it’s already taking proper precautions. As scientists debate the impact of small amounts of radiation on cancer risks, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says there’s not enough evidence to say what level is safe.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-15/radioactive-waste-booms-with-oil-as-new-rules-mulled.html
Oilfield's are spinning off thousands of tons of low-level radioactive trash as the U.S. drilling boom leads to a surge in illegal dumping and states debate how much landfills can safely take
State regulators are caught between environmental and public health groups demanding more regulation and the industry, which says it’s already taking proper precautions. As scientists debate the impact of small amounts of radiation on cancer risks, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says there’s not enough evidence to say what level is safe.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-15/radioactive-waste-booms-with-oil-as-new-rules-mulled.html
SpiderK
- 2,339
- 263
2 weeks after the Fukushima accident, we reported that the government responded to the nuclear accident by trying to raise radiation limits.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is raising by a factor of 350 what it considers to be the threshold for safe radiation exposure, Jon Utley reported at Reason.com. The higher threshold belatedly rectifies overly restrictive standards that have cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars, Utley reported.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is raising by a factor of 350 what it considers to be the threshold for safe radiation exposure, Jon Utley reported at Reason.com. The higher threshold belatedly rectifies overly restrictive standards that have cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars, Utley reported.
SpiderK
- 2,339
- 263
so ...... don't tell me those fracking socks are not toxic,low level waste, if the corrupt handlers keep raising the bar ....... fuck the young.
radiation is " good " .
radiation is " good " .
Bulldog11
- 2,709
- 263
Couldn't agree more what what you said about Fukushima. My brother was stopped at a beach for using a Geiger-Mueller, he was told it was scaring the locals. He told them he was a local and he wanted to carry of with his day. He was then threatened he would be improsoned and his gear confiscated if he didn't leave imediatly. The readings he got were way over the safe levels. This was in Pacifica ca and the people that approached him were EPA......... Here is a story the local news ran shortly after.....Turns out the sand itself is super radio active, who would of thunk...........(Heavy sarcasm)
http://patch.com/california/halfmoo...ch-radiation-not-from-fukushima-officials-say
http://patch.com/california/halfmoo...ch-radiation-not-from-fukushima-officials-say
fishwhistle
- 4,686
- 263
I read this on another site today,crazy shit!
"It takes approximately 2,000 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of almonds in California.
To put that into perspective, the average home swimming pool holds approximately 13,000 gallons of water, or enough to grow 6.5 pounds of almonds.
According to the almond growers association the farm price for almonds in 2013 was $2.58 per pound. If that entire $2.58 went to pay for water (which it doesn't) that water would cost $0.00129 per gallon or around 13 cents for 100 gallons.
The report went on to say that in 2013 California's farmers grew 1.87 billion pounds of almonds.
That's the equivalent to 287.6 million 13 x 20 foot swimming pools that if they were laid end to end would wrap around the earth 43 times (and that's just one crop).
I don't have a pool and still pay close to $80 per month for water and I can be fined if I water my grass on a Tuesday instead of Wednesday?
There is something seriously wrong with this equation."
Went on to state that rice farmers around sacramento were actually selling their water rights and not planting because the water was worth more than the actual rice crop profits,The very same water we subsidize to them at incredibly cheap pricing!
"It takes approximately 2,000 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of almonds in California.
To put that into perspective, the average home swimming pool holds approximately 13,000 gallons of water, or enough to grow 6.5 pounds of almonds.
According to the almond growers association the farm price for almonds in 2013 was $2.58 per pound. If that entire $2.58 went to pay for water (which it doesn't) that water would cost $0.00129 per gallon or around 13 cents for 100 gallons.
The report went on to say that in 2013 California's farmers grew 1.87 billion pounds of almonds.
That's the equivalent to 287.6 million 13 x 20 foot swimming pools that if they were laid end to end would wrap around the earth 43 times (and that's just one crop).
I don't have a pool and still pay close to $80 per month for water and I can be fined if I water my grass on a Tuesday instead of Wednesday?
There is something seriously wrong with this equation."
Went on to state that rice farmers around sacramento were actually selling their water rights and not planting because the water was worth more than the actual rice crop profits,The very same water we subsidize to them at incredibly cheap pricing!
markscastle
Well-Known Farmer
- 4,825
- 263
Yep you can always replant rice when there is a wet year but almond trees take years to produce so if you don`t water them and they die it would take years for new trees to yield. Sense the water lords have cut back on ag water the almond farmers are pumping from wells. It`s more expense but it also depletes the ground water when it`s been dry as long as it has. The ground water could take 20+ average to above average rain years to refill and if we continue in drought and they keep pumping the ground sinks where there isn`t enough storage even when it does start into regular rain fall years. We have had natural drought in Cali in the past that lasted 20+ years but at that time there weren`t wells. We aren`t sure what happens if we run out of aqua filter/ground water. Kind of scary !!! I think it`s time for a public rain dance day here in Cali!!
Bulldog11
- 2,709
- 263
Or just collect more rain. 70% of all rain water goes into the ocean. Problem solved.
thgobs
- 77
- 33
Desalination, desalinization, or desalinisation is any of several processes that remove some amount of salt and other minerals from saline water. More generally, desalination may also refer to the removal of salts and minerals,[1] as in soil desalination, which also happens to be a major issue for agricultural production.[2]
Salt water is desalinated to produce fresh water suitable for human consumption or irrigation. One potential byproduct of desalination is salt. Desalination is used on many seagoing ships and submarines. Most of the modern interest in desalination is focused on developing cost-effective ways of providing fresh water for human use. Along with recycled wastewater, this is one of the few rainfall-independent water sources.[3]
Due to relatively high energy consumption, the costs of desalinating sea water are generally higher than the alternatives (fresh water from rivers or groundwater, water recycling and water conservation), but alternatives are not always available and rapid overdraw and depletion of reserves is a critical problem worldwide. Quoting Christopher Gasson of Global Water Intelligence, At the moment, around 1% of the world's population are dependent on desalinated water to meet their daily needs, but by 2025, the UN expects 14% of the world's population to be encountering water scarcity. Unless people get radically better at water conservation, the desalination industry has a very strong future indeed.[4]
Desalination is particularly relevant to dry countries such as Australia, which traditionally have relied on collecting rainfall behind dams to provide their drinking water supplies. According to the International Desalination Association, in June 2011, 15,988 desalination plants operated worldwide, producing 66.5 million cubic meters per day, providing water for 300 million people.[5] This number has been updated to 78.4 million cubic meters by 2013.,[4] or 57% greater than just 5 years prior. The single largest desalination project is Ras Al Khair in Saudi Arabia, which produces 1,025,000 cubic meters per day in 2014[4] The largest percent of desalinated water used in any country is in Israel, which produces 40% of its domestic water use from seawater desalination
(OUR GOOD ALLIES WE GAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO ILLEGALLY PLUS TONS OF YEARLY AMERICAN TAX MONEY TO HAVE AND USE THE TECHNOLOGY)
Israel is creating a water surplus using desalination
Julia Pyper, E&E reporter
ClimateWire: Friday, February 7, 2014
Part four of a four-part series. Read parts one, two and three.
SEDE BOQER, Israel -- In the land of milk and honey, water has always been in short supply.
Researchers here have linked temperature rise and drought to migration patterns across this arid region dating back to biblical times. Now, for the first time in its history, Israel is on track to experience a water surplus.
SPECIAL SERIES
Israel, a largely arid country with a history of few natural resources, is experiencing a clean technology boom. This series explores how it is becoming a global market leader.
The tricky part is scaling up the chemistry and reducing the cost of separating salt from seawater.
The first major desalination plant in Israel opened in the southern city of Ashkelon in 2005. Since then, four more large-scale seawater desalination plants have come online, with additional capacity in the pipeline.
In the span of a decade, desalination has come to produce about 40 percent of Israel's water supply. On its current trajectory, Israel will have access to more than 600 million cubic meters of desalinated water per year by 2015, which amounts to more than half the country's total freshwater needs.
Desalination has led to a resource revolution in Israel, said Shlomo Wald, chief scientist at the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources. "Now, Israel isn't always dependent on the mercy of God to give us rain," he said.
Drought's stress eases
For the last seven years, Israel has been in a severe drought. The country's largest freshwater resource, the Sea of Galilee, had been hovering around critical lows until the rains returned last year.
More abundant water may improve diplomacy with Arab neighbors
While Israel's development of desalination has brought an end to years of living with water shortages, it is also opening doors for more peaceful collaboration with Israel's neighbors.
"In my opinion, it's a big future also for our neighbors," Shlomo Wald, chief scientist at the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources, said of the desalination boom in an interview. "I think Israel is willing to assist Jordan, Egypt and even the Gaza Strip ... and hopefully in the future Syria and Lebanon.
"Water is a crucial commodity in this area. I think all our neighbors should look to this huge technological effort to make water more available to the region," he added.
In December, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian government in the West Bank signed a major agreement to share water resources through desalination. Water produced from a new desalination plant in Aqaba will be divided between Israel and Jordan. The brine waste product will be piped north to the highly saline Dead Sea, where water levels are dropping at a record pace.
Mekorot, Israel's water utility, will also sell up to 30 million cubic meters of desalinated water each year to the West Bank.
It's in Israel's interest to work with the Palestinians, "because morally it's not healthy to have a thirsty neighbor and politically it's not healthy to have a thirsty neighbor," said Eilon Adar, director of water research at Ben-Gurion University.
The Gaza Strip, home to roughly 1.7 million Palestinians, is also in need of new water supplies. Today, 90 to 95 percent of Gaza's sole water source is polluted, according to UNICEF. In addition, overuse and a drastic drop in rainfall have caused wells to dry out.
The United Nations has cautioned against withdrawing too much groundwater in Gaza and called for the use of seawater desalination as an alternate source of drinking water. Yousef Abu Mayla, water expert at Al Azhar University in Gaza, said the only way to end the water crisis and realize a desalination plant in Gaza would be to set aside political differences and focus on exchanging expertise.
"We need more water, we need clean water," he said. "Climate change in the area affects our water resources and their quality as well. We have a growing population, increasing demand for water for agricultural purposes, industrial drinking, for domestic use for drinking purposes. We have to meet all these requirements with a regional approach, with cooperation and coordination."
He added, "If we start to work together on water issues ... we can improve the situation between us, between the Palestinians and Israelis. We cannot wait for the political problems to be solved."
-- Julia Pyper
By increasing Israel's desalination capacity, water managers won't have to draw on natural resources for everyday usage, allowing the region's aquifers to finally recover, said Eilon Adar, director of the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research at Ben-Gurion University.
In the 1960s, the thirst for water led Israelis to develop highly efficient drip irrigation systems. Today, Israel also treats and recycles more than 80 percent of household wastewater. Spain, which has the second-highest reclamation rate, recycles about 30 percent.
These long-standing practices, combined with desalination, have helped Israel "conquer the desert," Adar said, "rather than be pushed away by the desert."
Israel now has enough available water that the government has decided to curb production at four of the largest desalination plants. This year, the national water company Mekorot will buy 360 million cubic meters of desalinized seawater, just 70 percent of a total 510 million cubic meters of production capacity.
Desalinated water is expensive to make, and desalination plants are extremely capital-intensive to build. So why build them if they're not going to be fully used?
Climate change insurance policy
"It basically becomes an insurance policy against future extreme drought," said Reese Tisdale, president of Bluefield Research, a U.S.-based water sector research group. It's not a question of when drought will strike again, he said, but how soon.
Climate models predict Israel will see a continued decrease in available water resources through 2035. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development anticipates that Israel will see a decrease in precipitation and that water supplies will drop at least 25 percent as early as 2070.
"One thing about plants in Israel -- and I think this is in defense of plants being installed -- is that they may have plenty of water now, but the expectation is either drought is going to return or there will at least be some volatility," Tisdale said.
Water shortages aren't unique to the Middle East. As populations grow and temperatures rise, demand for fresh water will spike across the globe. For many communities, survival may depend on the ability to economically produce fresh water from the sea.
Israeli expertise could play a vital role in expanding water access. Despite its small size, Israel ranks next to the United States and Singapore as a desalination market leader, according to Tisdale.
"Israel is the heart of know-how in desalination worldwide," Wald said of the water and energy ministry. "We don't manufacture the membranes, we don't manufacture the pumps. But the engineering and the way a desalination plant should be designed and built, I think, the international hub is here in Israel."
Selling to China and the U.S.
Energy is the No. 1 driver of cost in desalination. Due in part to Israel's own resource constraints, Israeli companies have come to offer some of the cheapest desalinated water in the world -- about 60 cents per cubic meter.
The establishment of reverse osmosis desalination, which is less energy-intensive than the traditional method of using heat, has helped cut desalination costs across the board. Reverse osmosis works using semipermeable membranes to remove salt from water. Today's membranes are 20 times more efficient and one-fifth the cost of the first membranes tested in the 1950s.
Sorek, the world's largest seawater reverse osmosis plant, meets 20 percent of Israel's urban water needs. Photo courtesy of IDE Technologies.
IDE Technologies, one of Israel's most prominent desalination companies, has developed ways to further cut costs by using fewer pumps and energy recovery devices. At Israel's Ashkelon desalination plant, for instance, IDE spearheaded a method of generating power by using high-pressure brine to help rotate the pump motor. A standard turbine can recover about 80 percent of input energy; this process boosts energy recovery to 96 percent.
IDE has built three of Israel's five largest desalination plants, including the Sorek project that meets 20 percent of Israel's municipal water needs. IDE has also built China's largest desalination plant and is building the largest desalination plant in the United States: a $1 billion facility in Carlsbad, Calif.
Energy recovery technology used at the Carlsbad plant, set to come online in 2016, will save $12 million in annual energy costs. Energy savings will also cut greenhouse gas emissions to the tune of taking 8,500 passenger vehicles off the road for one year. Through additional mitigation steps, the plant is expected to reach carbon neutrality.
"Each project that you do ... you think is the end of ends and no one could get more efficient than that," said Avshalom Felber, CEO of IDE Technologies. "And then you yourself come up with another innovation."
Salt water is desalinated to produce fresh water suitable for human consumption or irrigation. One potential byproduct of desalination is salt. Desalination is used on many seagoing ships and submarines. Most of the modern interest in desalination is focused on developing cost-effective ways of providing fresh water for human use. Along with recycled wastewater, this is one of the few rainfall-independent water sources.[3]
Due to relatively high energy consumption, the costs of desalinating sea water are generally higher than the alternatives (fresh water from rivers or groundwater, water recycling and water conservation), but alternatives are not always available and rapid overdraw and depletion of reserves is a critical problem worldwide. Quoting Christopher Gasson of Global Water Intelligence, At the moment, around 1% of the world's population are dependent on desalinated water to meet their daily needs, but by 2025, the UN expects 14% of the world's population to be encountering water scarcity. Unless people get radically better at water conservation, the desalination industry has a very strong future indeed.[4]
Desalination is particularly relevant to dry countries such as Australia, which traditionally have relied on collecting rainfall behind dams to provide their drinking water supplies. According to the International Desalination Association, in June 2011, 15,988 desalination plants operated worldwide, producing 66.5 million cubic meters per day, providing water for 300 million people.[5] This number has been updated to 78.4 million cubic meters by 2013.,[4] or 57% greater than just 5 years prior. The single largest desalination project is Ras Al Khair in Saudi Arabia, which produces 1,025,000 cubic meters per day in 2014[4] The largest percent of desalinated water used in any country is in Israel, which produces 40% of its domestic water use from seawater desalination
(OUR GOOD ALLIES WE GAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO ILLEGALLY PLUS TONS OF YEARLY AMERICAN TAX MONEY TO HAVE AND USE THE TECHNOLOGY)
Israel is creating a water surplus using desalination
Julia Pyper, E&E reporter
ClimateWire: Friday, February 7, 2014
Part four of a four-part series. Read parts one, two and three.
SEDE BOQER, Israel -- In the land of milk and honey, water has always been in short supply.
Researchers here have linked temperature rise and drought to migration patterns across this arid region dating back to biblical times. Now, for the first time in its history, Israel is on track to experience a water surplus.
SPECIAL SERIES
Israel, a largely arid country with a history of few natural resources, is experiencing a clean technology boom. This series explores how it is becoming a global market leader.
The tricky part is scaling up the chemistry and reducing the cost of separating salt from seawater.
The first major desalination plant in Israel opened in the southern city of Ashkelon in 2005. Since then, four more large-scale seawater desalination plants have come online, with additional capacity in the pipeline.
In the span of a decade, desalination has come to produce about 40 percent of Israel's water supply. On its current trajectory, Israel will have access to more than 600 million cubic meters of desalinated water per year by 2015, which amounts to more than half the country's total freshwater needs.
Desalination has led to a resource revolution in Israel, said Shlomo Wald, chief scientist at the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources. "Now, Israel isn't always dependent on the mercy of God to give us rain," he said.
Drought's stress eases
For the last seven years, Israel has been in a severe drought. The country's largest freshwater resource, the Sea of Galilee, had been hovering around critical lows until the rains returned last year.
More abundant water may improve diplomacy with Arab neighbors
While Israel's development of desalination has brought an end to years of living with water shortages, it is also opening doors for more peaceful collaboration with Israel's neighbors.
"In my opinion, it's a big future also for our neighbors," Shlomo Wald, chief scientist at the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources, said of the desalination boom in an interview. "I think Israel is willing to assist Jordan, Egypt and even the Gaza Strip ... and hopefully in the future Syria and Lebanon.
"Water is a crucial commodity in this area. I think all our neighbors should look to this huge technological effort to make water more available to the region," he added.
In December, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian government in the West Bank signed a major agreement to share water resources through desalination. Water produced from a new desalination plant in Aqaba will be divided between Israel and Jordan. The brine waste product will be piped north to the highly saline Dead Sea, where water levels are dropping at a record pace.
Mekorot, Israel's water utility, will also sell up to 30 million cubic meters of desalinated water each year to the West Bank.
It's in Israel's interest to work with the Palestinians, "because morally it's not healthy to have a thirsty neighbor and politically it's not healthy to have a thirsty neighbor," said Eilon Adar, director of water research at Ben-Gurion University.
The Gaza Strip, home to roughly 1.7 million Palestinians, is also in need of new water supplies. Today, 90 to 95 percent of Gaza's sole water source is polluted, according to UNICEF. In addition, overuse and a drastic drop in rainfall have caused wells to dry out.
The United Nations has cautioned against withdrawing too much groundwater in Gaza and called for the use of seawater desalination as an alternate source of drinking water. Yousef Abu Mayla, water expert at Al Azhar University in Gaza, said the only way to end the water crisis and realize a desalination plant in Gaza would be to set aside political differences and focus on exchanging expertise.
"We need more water, we need clean water," he said. "Climate change in the area affects our water resources and their quality as well. We have a growing population, increasing demand for water for agricultural purposes, industrial drinking, for domestic use for drinking purposes. We have to meet all these requirements with a regional approach, with cooperation and coordination."
He added, "If we start to work together on water issues ... we can improve the situation between us, between the Palestinians and Israelis. We cannot wait for the political problems to be solved."
-- Julia Pyper
By increasing Israel's desalination capacity, water managers won't have to draw on natural resources for everyday usage, allowing the region's aquifers to finally recover, said Eilon Adar, director of the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research at Ben-Gurion University.
In the 1960s, the thirst for water led Israelis to develop highly efficient drip irrigation systems. Today, Israel also treats and recycles more than 80 percent of household wastewater. Spain, which has the second-highest reclamation rate, recycles about 30 percent.
These long-standing practices, combined with desalination, have helped Israel "conquer the desert," Adar said, "rather than be pushed away by the desert."
Israel now has enough available water that the government has decided to curb production at four of the largest desalination plants. This year, the national water company Mekorot will buy 360 million cubic meters of desalinized seawater, just 70 percent of a total 510 million cubic meters of production capacity.
Desalinated water is expensive to make, and desalination plants are extremely capital-intensive to build. So why build them if they're not going to be fully used?
Climate change insurance policy
"It basically becomes an insurance policy against future extreme drought," said Reese Tisdale, president of Bluefield Research, a U.S.-based water sector research group. It's not a question of when drought will strike again, he said, but how soon.
Climate models predict Israel will see a continued decrease in available water resources through 2035. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development anticipates that Israel will see a decrease in precipitation and that water supplies will drop at least 25 percent as early as 2070.
"One thing about plants in Israel -- and I think this is in defense of plants being installed -- is that they may have plenty of water now, but the expectation is either drought is going to return or there will at least be some volatility," Tisdale said.
Water shortages aren't unique to the Middle East. As populations grow and temperatures rise, demand for fresh water will spike across the globe. For many communities, survival may depend on the ability to economically produce fresh water from the sea.
Israeli expertise could play a vital role in expanding water access. Despite its small size, Israel ranks next to the United States and Singapore as a desalination market leader, according to Tisdale.
"Israel is the heart of know-how in desalination worldwide," Wald said of the water and energy ministry. "We don't manufacture the membranes, we don't manufacture the pumps. But the engineering and the way a desalination plant should be designed and built, I think, the international hub is here in Israel."
Selling to China and the U.S.
Energy is the No. 1 driver of cost in desalination. Due in part to Israel's own resource constraints, Israeli companies have come to offer some of the cheapest desalinated water in the world -- about 60 cents per cubic meter.
The establishment of reverse osmosis desalination, which is less energy-intensive than the traditional method of using heat, has helped cut desalination costs across the board. Reverse osmosis works using semipermeable membranes to remove salt from water. Today's membranes are 20 times more efficient and one-fifth the cost of the first membranes tested in the 1950s.
Sorek, the world's largest seawater reverse osmosis plant, meets 20 percent of Israel's urban water needs. Photo courtesy of IDE Technologies.
IDE Technologies, one of Israel's most prominent desalination companies, has developed ways to further cut costs by using fewer pumps and energy recovery devices. At Israel's Ashkelon desalination plant, for instance, IDE spearheaded a method of generating power by using high-pressure brine to help rotate the pump motor. A standard turbine can recover about 80 percent of input energy; this process boosts energy recovery to 96 percent.
IDE has built three of Israel's five largest desalination plants, including the Sorek project that meets 20 percent of Israel's municipal water needs. IDE has also built China's largest desalination plant and is building the largest desalination plant in the United States: a $1 billion facility in Carlsbad, Calif.
Energy recovery technology used at the Carlsbad plant, set to come online in 2016, will save $12 million in annual energy costs. Energy savings will also cut greenhouse gas emissions to the tune of taking 8,500 passenger vehicles off the road for one year. Through additional mitigation steps, the plant is expected to reach carbon neutrality.
"Each project that you do ... you think is the end of ends and no one could get more efficient than that," said Avshalom Felber, CEO of IDE Technologies. "And then you yourself come up with another innovation."
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