Saturday, August 01, 2009

A hard habit to break...

Yeah, I know it is August now but after a month of focusing on blog posts about water related issues I'm finding not posting about water related issues a tough habit to break.

More major announcements on major undertakings on desalination efforts, this time from Australia...

Suez Environnement Wins Bid for Largest Desalination Plant in Australia
Plant will provide one-third of Melbourne’s water needs by end of 2011
July 31, 2009

Through its Degrémont subsidiary and the AquaSure joint venture, the State of Victoria has just awarded Suez Environnement the contract for a seawater desalination plant project that will allow it to provide a third of metropolitan Melbourne’s water needs by the end of 2011.


Seeing more and more of this type of thing all the time. If Arizona interests lead to this sort of possible solution to water needs of Arizona residents... we won't be the first to try such efforts... nor will we pay as high of cost (brush up on econ 101).

This contract is the world’s largest public-private desalination project. It includes financing, design, construction and operation to 2039 for a plant with a capacity of 450,000 cu meters of drinking water per day, as well as an 85-km water distribution network. The total value of the investment is approximately $2.8 billion.


That darned public/private partnership thing again... more and more of this all the time. Seems to work everywhere, but in Kingman. We are just so much smarter here.

Located 80 km from Melbourne on the Bass Strait, the seawater desalination plant will satisfy the Victoria Government’s environmental and energy requirements, applying the latest technologies of Degrémont and its partners.


Heh... environmental and energy requirements.

Over time, an additional treatment line is envisioned, to ensure an increase in drinking water production capacity to 600,000 cu meters per day.


Planning for growth are they?? Mmmmm... probably not by hiding in a shell.

The plant will be completely integrated into its environment and will preserve the natural setting by creating an ecological space and reducing the environmental impact through rooftop gardens, ambitious planting programs for the site and protection of fauna. Moreover, the energy needed for producing and delivering the drinking water will be 100% renewable, generated primarily by a new wind farm in the State of Victoria.


We just must have intellectually non curious environmental types here in Mohave County.

That or they simply do not want to share the area with anyone else and don't have the money to buy up all the private property to ensure their vision of utopia in Mohave County.

Bottom line, there are solutions to whatever problem this area may face in the future as evidenced by the news from all over the planet. It's just hard to see for yourself when you live in a shell and ask that others do the very same thing.

But I can just hear it now... "but Todd, but Todd... it is going to cost money for these types of solutions."

You bet it is... it doesn't get any cheaper though when you continue to fight efforts to bring more tax payers (especially industrial types) to the area to help pay for it.

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