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To: Lane3 who wrote (23277)	7/7/2006 7:39:26 PM
From: Jim S	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541421

HAR!! All the icebergs have melted!! I think the desalinization idea is just a matter of economics, very much like using solar and wind energy. I know some Caribbean islands (St Thomas, for one) use reverse osmosis for commercial water plants in hotels and such. And large military units have portable water plants to desalinize seawater if necessary. So, it can be done, but the cost is much more than building pipelines.

To: Lane3 who wrote (23277)	7/8/2006 10:13:51 AM
From: Alastair McIntosh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541421

Tampa Bay has a 25 million gallon per day desalination plant. * The Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination Plant is designed to produce up to 25 million gallons per day, and can accommodate an expansion to produce up to 35 mgd in the future. * Plant modifications will include overhauling the pretreatment process to correct inadequate screening and filtration as well as deficiencies in the reverse osmosis and post-treatment processes. * When operating at full capacity, the Tampa Bay Seawater Desalination Plant will provide the Tampa Bay region with approximately 10 percent of its drinking water supply, making it the largest reverse osmosis (RO) seawater desalination facility in North America. * It produces some of the least expensive desalinated water in the world, with the average wholesale cost, after remediation, projected to be $2.54 per thousand gallons for the first year of operation. This cost will be reduced by approximately $0.61 per one thousand gallons over the long-term operation of the facility upon receipt of $85 million in co-funding from the Southwest Florida Water Management District. * The desalinated water is blended with water from other, less expensive water supply sources such as groundwater, making this alternative supply more affordable for member governments and consumers. * The 30,000 square-foot seawater desalination plant is located on 8.5 acres of Tampa Electric’s Big Bend power plant in Apollo Beach. The facility will use RO to extract high-quality drinking water from the saltwater in Tampa Bay. * The concentrated seawater left over from the desalination process will not significantly increase Tampa Bay’s salinity because it will be diluted in up to 1.4 billion gallons per day of power plant cooling water, a 70-to-1 dilution ratio. Its salinity, when returned to Tampa Bay, will be, on average, only 1.0 to 1.5 percent higher than the bay’s, falling well within normal, seasonal fluctuations in salinity to which marine life routinely and successfully adjust. * The initial cost to build the reverse osmosis plant and a nearly 15-mile pipeline was approximately $110 million. However, the plant is being revamped to remedy significant deficiencies with the plant’s pretreatment process, manufacture of plant components, reverse osmosis and post-treatment processes, which resulted in less efficient and more costly plant operations. Once remediated, the total capital cost of the project will be approximately $150 million. * Under the Partnership Agreement, the Southwest Florida Water Management District will reimburse Tampa Bay Water $85 million of the plant’s eligible capital costs. That agreement earmarks locally collected ad valorem taxes to offset the cost of alternative water supply development. tampabaywater.org