4.1.2 Recommendations

Desalination plants can cause a series of environmental problems; the most evident is damage to marine life around water intake and brine disposal infrastructure. Planning, construction and operation of desalination plants should be accompanied by environmental impact assessments and monitoring programs that record impacts to the natural environment once operation of the plant begins.

Since desalination plants are industrial plants, they should preferably be built away from any human settlement, areas used for recreation activities, and areas of conservational interest (Einav et al., 2002). Due to plans to develop along the coast and the presence of the NMPBL, virtually all the area from Ensenada Blanca up to Loreto can be considered inappropriate for a desalination plant. However, there are some aspects regarding social welfare and terrestrial impacts that also play an important role in the process of choosing the plant’s location. The most important is to keep pipelines to a minimum length in order to avoid contaminating local freshwater aquifers. This can be achieved by choosing an area that is close enough to the settlement in need of the water being produced, and at the same time close enough to the coast where water intake and brine discharge will take place.

Reverse osmosis is the process recommended for the region because it has environmental advantages (Einav et al., 2002; Ruiz, 2005) and because it is also the most widely process used in Mexico (Fuentes-Díaz and Ramírez-González, 2003). It is a process found to have moderate costs, energy consumption and yields good quality desalinated water (Table IV). There are people in Baja California Sur with the necessary knowledge and experience with this particular desalination process and technology, and their knowledge can help prevent accidents, solve problems, train workers and plan for the future of the plant.

Once the desalination plant begins operating, maintenance and upgrades in equipment are crucial for minimizing environmental impacts. Covering intake pipes with screens and placing diffusers on discharge pipes are ways to minimize impacts on marine communities, however in order to understand how the plant’s operation affects the local environment it is necessary to conduct surveys before and after operations begin, at multiple sites and times near and at increasing distances from the plant. This will allow specialists to detect any changes that may occur due to the building and operation of the plant. It will also allow plant managers to make changes in plant operations and/or equipment if environmental standards require it.