On the beach in Southern California, it's easy to look at the Pacific Ocean and wonder what would happen if we could drink it. It's already happening in some places, and others from Arizona to the California coast want to expand desalination. If big cities there use more of the ocean and less of the Colorado River, would that leave more water for the southwest? Part 4 of a 10-part series.
For more CPR News coverage of the Colorado River, visited cpr.org/parched.
Host: Michael Elizabeth Sakas
Written by Michael Elizabeth Sakas and Joe Wertz
Editors: Rachel Estabrook, Erin Jones
Production and Mixing: Rebekah Romberg
Additional Production: Emily Williams
Theme song by Kibwe Cooper. Additional music via Universal Production Music.
Artwork: Maria Juliana Pinzón
Executive Producers: Kevin Dale, Brad Turner
Additional Editorial Support: Alison Borden, Kibwe Cooper, Jo Erickson, Luis Antonio Perez, Taylar Dawn Stagner, Andrew Villegas, Emily Williams
Thanks also to Sarah Bures, Hart Van Denburg, Jodi Gersh, Kim Nguyen, Clara Shelton, Arielle Wilson.
Parched is a production of the Climate Solutions team of CPR News and Colorado Public Radio’s Audio Innovations Studio — part of the NPR Network.
Clear, pure drinking water, the finished product, at the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, Jan. 25, 2023. The plant went into service in 2015 and produces 50 million gallons per day, supplying drinking water for 400,000 people, or about 10 percent of San Diego County's population.
Clear, pure drinking water gets pumped through these pipes at Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, Jan. 25, 2023. The plant went into service in 2015 and produces 50 million gallons per day, supplying drinking water for 400,000 people, or about 10 percent of San Diego County's population.
Maintenance work in the reverse osmosis building at the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, where dissolved salt and other minerals are separated from the water, in more than 2,000 pressure vessels containing 16,000 reverse osmosis membranes, Jan. 25, 2023.
Oscar Rodriguez, who was among the environmental justice activists to successfully block development of a desalination plant in the coastal community of Huntington Beach, Calif., talks about the campaign during an interview in nearby Santa Ana, Jan. 25, 2023. More than 100 million gallons of seawater would have been pumped into the plant, to create 50 million gallons of drinkable water, but also pump millions of gallons of concentrated brine into the ocean. Rodriguez was most concerned about the possibility of water rate hikes on communities of modest income.
