Monday May 17, 2010
Border Governors Binational Desalination Conference Scheduled for San Diego May 26-27
Source: California Department of Water Resources
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A binational conference on desalination in the U.S. – Mexico border region is planned for May 26 and 27 in San Diego. The event is co-sponsored by the Department of Water Resources (DWR), the Central Arizona Project, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Lower Colorado Region, and the Water Education Foundation with additional financial support from the San Diego County Water Authority and Southern Nevada Water Authority. Hilton’s San Diego Resort is the site of the conference, which is being held in response to a joint declaration adopted last year at the U.S. - Mexico Border Governors Conference. The agenda and registration information are available at: http://www.watereducation.org/doc.asp?id=1390&parentID=849. The purpose of the Border Governors Conference, held annually by the four U.S. and six Mexican states that share the international boundary, is to address issues of mutual importance in the border region, a region noted for its aridity and population growth. Finding new sources of water for growing communities throughout the border region is a shared challenge, and one that can in part be met through desalination of brackish groundwater or seawater. Communities throughout the border region from California to Texas and from Baja California to Tamaulipas are increasingly examining desalination as a potential water supply option. The possibility of U.S. –Mexico participation in a Baja California seawater desalination plant, for example, is presently being explored in the Colorado River cooperative binational process, and the world’s largest inland brackish groundwater desalination plant was recently constructed in El Paso. USBR’s Yuma Desalination Plant, whose role in helping meet expected future shortages in the Colorado River Basin has been under discussion, is gearing up for a pilot run at 30 percent capacity for operational data collection purposes. This bilingual conference will feature simultaneous English-Spanish translation. The conference will bring together representatives from international, federal, state, and local agencies on both sides of the border and from industry to share information about projects now underway or in planning, financing approaches for desalination projects, and developments in desalination technology and project design. Additional conference topics include:
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