Get Away From My Mother (Desalination Plants)

Ah, Fall is in full swing. The air is nippy, the trees are glistening gold, I'm wearing my favorite sweater and scarf....

Wait. No. It's 72 degrees and sunny and I'm going to the beach before going to a Halloween party tonight.

It's difficult to tell what's "normal", weather-wise, here in Santa Cruz. While our temperatures throughout the year only span about 30 degrees, you literally never know when it's going to be 72 and sunny or 54 and foggy. What we're in now is our Indian Summer, I suppose, though the environmentalist in me never fails to end up believing wholeheartedly that it shouldn't be like this in late October and this is our fault. And then proceed to go to the beach anyway. Sigh. The dilemma.

My environmental guilt is a nice segue into a magazine that recently caught the bulk of my attention: Growth, a student-produced magazine on the expansion of University of California, Santa Cruz. Relative to overall area and student population, UCSC has the most undeveloped land of any UC (have you been here? We're all trees!), and as the UC system is required to admit the top 12.5% of California's graduating high school class each year (which continues to grow), we are being pushed to expand. Right off the bat, without any sort of logical reasoning, most of us slugs will object to expansion and proceed to sit in a tree. I know that was my reaction the first time I heard of it.


All these pictures from 2007, at the last big protest.

Yet us tree-huggers and tree-sitters and overall tree-appreciators also have a logical side, and I've found it in this magazine. And it doesn't limit itself to trees. In fact, one of the most interesting arguments I found was one about plans for a desalination plant on the Santa Cruz coast.


Can you see the irony in this? (from the city's website promoting the plant)

What does this have to do with expansion? As we use so much of the city's water (although per capita campus water consumption has fallen 40 percent in the last 30 years, maybe because some of us only shower when it rains), no plans for expansion could be approved until, as Growth states, an extension of water and sewer services is approved.



So that brings us to desalination. Without ever thinking too deeply about it, I have always considered this "solution" to be flawed only in how expensive it is. We all know that most of earth's water is saltwater and undrinkable by humans in our current evolutionary stage. The problem is never that saltwater is running out (although its quality, for our marine bros and sistas that live in it, is a whole other issue), but that freshwater is running low. So obviously, it seems reasonable that if we can convert saltwater into drinking water, we should be good on h20 for a long time.

Yeah, kinda not really.


LRDP: Long Range Development Plan.

I was horrified when I realized that I had never thought about what they do with the brine (salt and other minerals) after they extract it from the water.

You know what they do?

THEY PUT IT BACK IN THE OCEAN (or sometimes in landfills) along with other toxic byproducts from the plant.

And do you know how they run the desalination plant itself?

PETROLEUM. COAL. Unless they put in the time and resources to find a renewable energy source (ha).

Hello greenhouse gas emissions and oversalinated marine ecosystems.

Forgive me if I sound like an overemotional ranting hippie. It's what I am. I love trees. I love clean air. I love the goddamn earth beneath my feet. But the ocean? She is my mother. Just as I cannot express in words the love I have for my human mother, I cannot tell you how much it infuriates me when someone messes with the ocean and all her children. And it's not like I can tree-sit the ocean, or trust me I would. For as long as it takes.



I'm sure that right about now you're thinking, well, she sounds like all the rest. Angry about the issues but not presenting a better solution herself. That's pretty true. Environmental studies is a dismal science. But thankfully, Growth does present an alternative: increased effort put into recycled water. More research could also be done to design a more sustainable desalination plant, because their implementation is gaining popularity worldwide and they will happen.

The point is, as Growth states so well:

Plans for expansion are currently stalled by a lawsuit, but the issue won't stay tied up in court forever. In the meantime, arm yourself with knowledge, and figure out where you stand on the matter. Go out into the forest, and find a quiet spot. Listen to the redwoods and firs creaking in the wind, and to birds talking amongst themselves. Poke around for mushrooms, and see if you can spot a salamander. Ask yourself: what does this place mean to me?



Also, god do I love my school.

xoxo
Juliana