Starting Monday, October 20, the Ocean Provider, a 270-foot barge, will be anchored just east of Stearns Wharf to support the Offshore Desal Pump Platform Stabilization Project. This critical infrastructure upgrade is designed to protect and reinforce the two offshore intake pump structures that serve the Charles E. Meyer Desalination Plant (Desal Plant).
Crews will be placing protective rock around the pump platforms, making them more resilient to strong currents caused by storms and large tidal changes. The barge will house all necessary staff, equipment, and materials on board to support the work. Construction will take place daily from 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., seven days a week, through late November.
Located approximately half a mile offshore in about 35 feet of water, one of the pump platforms has become partially suspended about 18 inches above the seafloor due to strong ocean currents. Long-term reinforcement is necessary to prevent potential movement or collapse of the intake structure. Originally built in 1991, the platforms were upgraded in 2016 with new pumps and screening systems during the Desal Plant’s reactivation.
“This project helps ensure that the Desal Plant’s infrastructure can withstand threats from natural disasters such as major storms and sea level rise,” said Joshua Haggmark, Department of Water Resources Director. “Our City has developed the most diverse water supply portfolio in the state and continues to make smart and innovative investments to ensure our infrastructure continues to provide reliable water service.”
This project supports the City’s long-term commitment to diversifying its water supply by extending the useful life of the pump platform, ensuring that the Desal Plant remains a viable part of the City’s water supply portfolio for years to come.
For more information, visit Offshore Desal Pump Platform Stabilization Project (SantaBarbaraCA.gov/DesalPumpPlatform).
The location of this desalination intake seems disturbingly close to Santa Barbara’s SEWAGE output pipeline… please someone correct me if I’m wrong!
That’s very true. The sewage pipeline is about the same distance offshore as the saline intake and just to the east where the East Beach volleyball courts are. I could look it up on my Garmin but to me it’s about 1/4 mile. They’re literally side by side on our waterfront.
You could use your Garmin and a sun dial, or easily look up the published facts on the Internet. The grand kids could help you use Netscape Navigator.
Intake: The plant’s seawater intake pipe is situated about 2,500 feet (half a mile) offshore, near Stearns Wharf. This location is where seawater is drawn into the plant.
Outfall: The outfall pipe, which discharges both the treated wastewater and the desalination plant’s concentrated brine, extends farther out into the ocean, about 1.5 miles offshore.
Desalination plants play a notable role in ocean acidification due to the discharge of brine—a highly concentrated salt byproduct of the desalination process. This brine can significantly reduce oxygen levels in surrounding waters, threatening marine ecosystems. Moreover, it often contains heavy metals and other contaminants that may accumulate in the food chain, endangering both aquatic life and human health. When released into natural water bodies, brine can create hypoxic “dead zones” where marine life cannot survive. To address these environmental concerns, desalination facilities should implement sustainable waste management strategies and invest in research for more efficient, eco-friendly technologies.
Increased housing density mandates will likely drive up water demand, exacerbating shortages and prompting expanded reliance on desalination. This, in turn, could intensify the environmental burden through greater brine and pollutant discharge, contributing further to ocean acidification.
Question: Can treated sewage and brine discharged from a desalination plant’s outflow pipe be carried by ocean currents or waves back to its intake pipe?
Now do gas and oil refineries.
Sun seems to be trying to link brine from desal operations to ocean acidification, but it’s just hysteria. The brine output from desalination is usually slightly alkaline, and can actually be recycled to improve the desal process. Desal plants also have to meet strict brine release environmental regulations.
https://news.mit.edu/2019/brine-desalianation-waste-sodium-hydroxide-0213
Sun is posting unsupported opinion as though it were fact.
@ anonymous the link you provided is a pilot project and very few desal plants convert brine into useful chemicals…even your MIT article confirms the damage caused from brine released by desal plans. Most of the world’s 16,000+ desalination plants discharge brine waste back into the sea.
Berkeley, NOAA, WEF, EPA all agree… …
https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~prb/ocean-water-desalination-plants/
again if you work at the plant, please provide the acidic levels released, the city does mix waste water with the brine, but they do not provide acidic/alkaline levels..if you have the data provide the source..
It’s good that desal can be used as “backup” here, but it raises a RED FLAG — by having to use desal it reaffirms the fact that our natural resources can not meet demand…this makes the high density housing mandate unsustainable and the dismantle of CEQA pure recklessness .
The ability of Cities, Towns, and Counties to manage their growth has been removed by AB 130 and SB 131. They have “systematically dismantled core provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), eliminating environmental safeguards that have protected California’s landscapes, wildlife, and vulnerable communities for over half a century.” They have removed transparency, eliminated
Protections for Vulnerable Communities, Abandoned Wildlife and Habitat Protection,Undermined Democratic Processes. “Governor Newsom’s decision to tie these bills to the state’s $320 billion budget deal represents an unprecedented abuse of the legislative process. ”
https://california.surfrider.org/blog/californias-environmental-rollback-the-dismantling-of-ceqa-protections#:~:text=Assembly%20Bill%20130%20and%20Senate%20Bill%20131%20systematically,and%20vulnerable%20communities%20for%20over%20half%20a%20century.
You have the following senate and assembly members to thank.
AB 130
https://legiscan.com/CA/votes/AB130/2025
Assembly vote
https://legiscan.com/CA/rollcall/AB130/id/1596762
Senate vote
https://legiscan.com/CA/rollcall/AB130/id/1596761
SB 131
https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB131/id/3259518
Assembly vote SB 131
https://legiscan.com/CA/rollcall/SB131/id/1596747
SENATE vote SB131
https://legiscan.com/CA/rollcall/SB131/id/1596745
It was a pilot project in 2019.
We don’t need any more logorrhea.
back it up with numbers and a source for your so called mass use of the pilot project..
About Santa Barbara’s Desalination Plant
https://santabarbaraca.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Public%20Works/Water%20Supply/Desal%20FAQs.pdf
I didn’t say mass use – that’s your hallucination. I merely pointed out, with a confirming citation, that you were wrong.
This is where the cruise ships dump their sewage and micro-plastics.