Country's Largest Ocean Desalination Plant Opens In San Diego County

In California’s continuing battle with drought, one possible solution is mass desalination of ocean water.

From Here & Now contributor KPBS in San Diego, environmental reporter Erik Anderson reports from the opening of the largest ocean desalination facility in the Western Hemisphere, the Carlsbad Desalination Plant. The plant, which cost $1 billion, will produce drinking water for the citizens of San Diego County.

In March, we spoke with one of the partners on the project, Sandy Kerl. He said then: “This certainly probably holds the most potential for the largest volume of water. In terms of scale there has not been a plan of this size done, and so we don't think of it as small plant we think of it as a big, fill-up-the-glass-of-water in San Diego County”.

• Read more about the desalination plant via KPBS

Reporter

• Erik Anderson, environmental reporter for KPBS in San Diego. He tweets @KPBSErik.

Host

• Eric Westervelt, correspondent for NPR and guest host for Here & Now. He tweets @Ericnpr.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit NPR.