Sustainable Water Supply in a Changing Climate
T he East Bay Municipal Utility District (East Bay MUD) has been providing drinking water to the people of California’s Bay Area for almost a century, amid rapid population growth and climatic change. Today, the threats posed by challenges such as intense storms, flooding, wildfires, and sea level rise are front and center. East Bay MUD […]
How Albuquerque Is Planning for the Next 100 Years
T he Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority supplies water to 675,000 residential, commercial, and institutional water customers in a service area centered primarily on New Mexico’s Bernalillo County. Providing water to this desert region is a challenge, and over the last few years, the Water Authority has transitioned its water supplies from 100 percent […]
Earthquake Planning in the Coachella Valley
D esert Water Agency (DWA) serves 64,000 people in a service area in California’s Coachella Valley centered on the city of Palm Springs. This area of Southern California is vulnerable to natural disasters of several kinds, primarily earthquakes and wildfires, both of which have occurred in DWA’s service area. As a major utility that provides […]
How HDR Is Implementing Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations
W ater supply and flood prevention are constant concerns for the managers of dams and reservoirs, particularly in the American West. Reservoirs must maintain enough empty space to handle sudden storm flows while at the same time holding on to as much precious water as they can. In the past, problems like this were addressed […]
Dave Eggerton of ACWA
T he Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) represents more than 450 local water agencies across our nation’s most populous state. Between advocating for its member agencies’ needs on the state and federal level and supporting their policies and investments, ACWA works to ensure a reliable water supply amid the challenges of population growth, extreme […]
Eastern Municipal Water District’s Inland Desalination
Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD) provides water, wastewater, and recycled water service to more than 825,000 people in Riverside County, California. For the past two decades, the district has supplemented its largely imported water supply by developing brackish water desalination plants. This year, the district will begin construction on a new desalination plant; when it […]
How ROTEC Is Improving Desalination Technology Around the World
High-recovery reverse osmosis (RO) is becoming a vital solution for both municipal and industrial water portfolios around the world. It is a reliable, drought-resilient water source that in many cases can be more affordable than importing new surface water. RO is also a critical component in the advanced treatment and reuse of municipal wastewater and […]
Oceanus’s Hybrid Pumped-Storage Desalination Facility
Desalination plants typically deal with two major problems: the desalination process requires a large amount of energy, and it results in a large amount of brine, which is difficult to get rid of and can be harmful to the natural environment. Oceanus Power and Water has discovered an innovative solution to both of these problems: […]
Averting Catastrophe, Seizing Opportunity
T he Salton Sea is California’s largest lake, located at the lowest point of the Colorado River basin, 235 feet below sea level. Fed primarily by agricultural drainage flows from the crops of the Coachella Valley and constantly concentrated by evaporation, the sea is nearly twice as salty the ocean. That intense salinity is only […]
Brackish Desalination
A s an arid state with a rapidly growing population, Texas is in need of alternative water supplies. Since 1988, Bill Norris has been part of the solution. First with his company NRS and now with his current company, NorrisLeal, Mr. Norris has been a pioneer in promoting brackish desalination as a cost-effective alternative water […]