I grew up in LA and am glad to be out of it. California is no place to retire, folks. There is no water there. South Carolina is real nice.
Don't understand all the posters on this thread warning / complaining about a putative lack of water in California.
Are you talking about coastline and/or water recreational resources, or potable water (for drinking and/or agricultural purposes)?
To my knowledge (after quickly leafing through a Rand McNally), California has an extensive coastline, with lots of pretty beaches and - in the south - warm bathing waters. So I guess you all mean that there is a scarcity of the latter (drinking and/or agricultural purposes).
So, are people dying of thirst, or are crops suffering from drought?
Or is it a question of water prices? Surely the cost of household water is not prohibitively high.
So what's the real problem?
Regards,
I also grew up in LA and am glad to be out of there.
There is water here but there are not enough dams. That can be fixed but it could get ugly. The Auburn dam comes to mind.
One nice thing about living in the center of California is that you are always a short drive from the coast (Monterrey) or the mountains (Yosemite, Mineral King). The author was making a case for retirees coming here by stressing the expansion of healthcare facilities.
new water source in north san diego county
Here’s some info on desalinization
http://www.pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/desalination_report3.pdf
Carlsbad Cal is building a plant which is slated to open in 2016, 16 years after the proposal was approved by the city. Administrative hearings and court processes in which environmental groups got several bites of the apple trying to shoot it down.
What happens to the salt?
The desalination plant typically uses three kilograms of seawater to produce 1 kilogram of fresh water. The extracted salt dissolves in the excess sea water used in the process to form so-called brine. The brine is returned to the sea where it is diluted again in its natural medium.
Can salt be recovered?
The usual desalination processes do not provide for such recovery. Whereas they concentrate seawater 1.5 times, recovery of salt would require seawater to be concentrated ten times. Under such conditions the first crystals would appear in the brine. This would require a lot of energy and cannot be justified on an economic standpoint. Today whenever a large surface area is available close to a sunny seashore, salt pans, which make use of solar energy, are still the best method of salt production.