View of a plant owned by Aguas Antofagasta, a company created 20 years ago that now has three desalination plants to supply drinking water to 184,000 families in that desert city in northern Chile. Credit: Courtesy of Acades

By Orlando Milesi
SANTIAGO, Oct 22 2025 (IPS)

Desalination projects are booming in Chile, with 51 plants planned to process seawater and a combined investment of US$ 24.455 billion. However, these initiatives hardly benefit small-scale farmers, who are threatened by the prolonged drought, and cause environmental concerns.

A survey by the Capital Goods Corporation and the Chilean Desalination and Reuse Association (Acades) revealed that these projects, already in the engineering and construction phases, will add 39,043 liters of water per second in production capacity."Using seawater, desalinated or saline, and reusing wastewater relieves pressure on rivers and aquifers, ensuring water for people, ecosystems, and productive activities" –Rafael Palacios.

Fifteen of these projects belong to the mining sector, eight to the industrial sector, eight to the water utility sector, and 20 are linked to green hydrogen, a clean fuel but very water-intensive, which the country aims to be a major producer of.

Of the future plants, 17 are located in the desert region of Antofagasta, in the far north of this elongated South American country, which lies between the Andes mountain range and the Pacific Ocean.

There are 11 projects in the southern region of Magallanes, followed in number by the regions of Atacama, Coquimbo, and Valparaíso, in the north and center of Chile, which concentrate most of the investment.

Rafael Palacios, executive director of Acades, told IPS that this country “faces a scenario in which water availability in northern and central Chile could decrease by up to 50% by 2060, so we cannot continue to depend solely on continental sources.”

“Using seawater, desalinated or saline, and reusing wastewater relieves pressure on rivers and aquifers, ensuring water for people, ecosystems, and productive activities,” he emphasized.

Currently, 23 desalination plants are already operating in Chile with a capacity of 9,500 liters per second. They primarily serve mining needs, but also industrial and human consumption.

One of the large greenhouses for the hydroponic cultivation of vegetables irrigated with desalinated water, on the farm of one of the 90 members of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Altos de la Portada, in the northern Chilean region of Antofagasta. Credit: Courtesy of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Altos de la Portada.

Small-scale farmers benefit

Dolores Jiménez has been president for the last eight years of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Altos de la Portada, in Antofagasta. The association has 90 active members who collectively own 100 hectares where they have created a Hydroponic City.

“We have no water problems thanks to an agreement with Aguas Antofagasta. We have an oasis which we would otherwise not have without that agreement,” Jiménez told IPS by telephone from Antofagasta, the capital of the region of the same name.

Aguas Antofagasta is a private company that desalinates water in the north of this country of 19.7 million inhabitants. The company draws water from the Pacific Ocean using an outfall that extends 600 meters offshore to a depth of 25 meters.

In desalination, outfalls are the underwater pipes that draw seawater and return and disperse the brine in a controlled manner, far from the coast and at an adequate depth.

Founded 20 years ago, the company currently desalinates water in three plants in the municipalities of Antofagasta, Tocopilla, and Tal Tal, supplying 184,000 families in that region.

Dolores Jiménez, president of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Altos de la Portada, shows the strength of the crops thanks to the use of desalinated water that reaches small farmers due to an agreement with Aguas Antofagasta. Credit: Courtesy of the Association of Agricultural Producers of Altos de la Portada

In its project to supply the general population, it included the association of small-scale farmers who grow carrots, broccoli, Italian zucchini, cucumbers, medicinal herbs, and edible flowers.

“They support us with water from the pipeline that goes to Mejillones (a coastal city in the region). They financed the connection for us to fill six 30,000 liter tanks, installed on a plot at the highest point. From there, we distribute it using a water tanker truck,” informed Jiménez.

“Now, thanks to a project by the (state) National Irrigation Commission, we were able to secure 280 million pesos (US$294,000) for an inter-farm connection that will deliver water through pipes to 70 plots,” she added.

This will mean significant savings for the farmers.

Jesús Basáez in his farm in Pullally, on the central coast of Chile. There he grows quinoa, which he irrigates with highly saline water that the grain tolerates without problems. Previously, that saline water forced him to stop producing strawberries. Credit: Orlando Milesi / IPS

In Pullally, in the municipality of Papudo, in the central Valparaíso region, 155 kilometers northwest of Santiago, Jesús Basáez used to grow strawberries alongside a dozen other small farmers. But the crop failed due to the salinity of the groundwater, apparently caused by the drought affecting the La Ligua and Petorca rivers and proximity to the sea.

He then switched to quinoa, which tolerates salinity well. Today he is known as the King of Quinoa, a grain valued for its nutritional properties and versatility, which was an ancestral food of Andean highland peoples and has now spread among small Chilean farmers.

Basáez has three hectares planted with white, red, and black varieties of quinoa, which he irrigates with water obtained from a well, as he told IPS during a visit to his farm.

The public University of Playa Ancha, based in the city of Valparaíso, installed a mobile desalination plant on his farm that uses reverse osmosis to remove components from the saltwater that are harmful for irrigation. Pressure is applied to the saltwater so that it passes through a semipermeable membrane that filters the water, separating the salts.

After successful tests, Basáez is now about to resume his strawberry cultivation.

“It was three years of research, and it was concluded that it is viable to produce non-brackish water to grow strawberries again. The problem is that the cost remains very high and prevents replicating this experience for other farmers,” he said. The mobile plant cost the equivalent of US$ 84,000.

The mobile desalination plant installed on Jesús Basáez’s farm to research the high salinity of the water at the site. For three years, teachers and students from the University of Playa Ancha, in the central Chilean region of Valparaíso, researched how to reduce the water salinity on this agricultural property. Credit: Orlando Milesi / IPS

Debating the effects of desalination

Since 2010, Chile has been facing a long drought with water deficits of around 30%. There was extreme drought in 2019 and 2021, and the country benefited from a normal period in 2024, although the resource deficit persists, in a country where water management is also privatized.

A report from the Climate and Resilience Center of the public University of Chile, known as CR2, indicated that current rates of groundwater use are higher than the recharge capacity of the aquifers, causing a decline in reserves.

In the 23 already operational desalination plants, seawater is extracted using outfalls that are not very long, installed along the coastline of a shore that has numerous concessions and uses dedicated to aquaculture, artisanal fishermen, and indigenous communities.

The main problem is the discharge of brine following the industrial desalination process.

“I will never be against obtaining water for human consumption. Although this highly concentrated brine that goes to the seabed has an impact where a large part of our benthic resources (organisms from the bottom of water bodies) are located. On a local scale, except in the discharge area, this impact has never been evaluated,” Laura Farías, a researcher at the public University of Concepción and at CR2, told IPS.

“There is literature that points out that there is undoubtedly an impact. There are different stages of biological cycles, from larvae to settled organisms. There is even an impact on pelagic organisms that have the ability to move. And also an impact at the ecosystem level,” the academic specified by telephone from Concepción, a city in central Chile.

She added that this impact is proportional to the volume of desalinated water.

Jesús Basáez, in the municipality of Papudo, poses showing a mature quinoa plant in one hand and in the other a container designed to sell each kilogram of the grain he produces in its white, red, and black varieties. Credit: Orlando Milesi / IPS

According to Farías, the water crisis has led to desalination being part of the solution, despite its impact on marine ecosystems, coastal vegetation, and wildlife.

“It is a maladaptation, because in the end it will have impacts that will affect the coastal inhabitants who depend on those resources,” she emphasized.

There are currently initiatives to legislate on the use of the coastal zone, but according to Farías, they seek to “normalize, regularize, and standardize those impacts, after these plants already exist and there are others seeking approval.”

Palacios, the director of Acades, has a different opinion.

The concerns about the environmental impact of desalination on coastal ecosystems are legitimate, but current evidence and technology demonstrate that this impact can be managed effectively, he says.

“In Chile, recent studies show no evidence that the operation of desalination plants has so far caused significant environmental impacts, thanks to constant monitoring and advanced diffusion systems,” he detailed.

He added that “in most cases, the natural salinity concentration is restored within two or three seconds and at less than 20 meters from the outfalls.”

Palacios explained that research by the Environmental Hub of the University of Playa Ancha “confirms increases in salinity of less than 5% within 100 meters.” And in areas like Caldera, a coastal city in the northern Atacama region, they are “less than 3% within 50 meters, limiting the areas of influence to small zones.”

“We are already implementing the first Clean Production Agreement in desalination and water reuse, promoted together with the (state) Agency for Sustainability and Climate Change, advancing towards voluntary standards for sustainable management, transparency, and strengthening the link with communities,” he emphasized.

Two people collect drinking water in plastic containers at the intake of the pumping station of the desalination plant located in Las Mangas, Granma province, Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

By Dariel Pradas
BAYAMO, Cuba, Sep 9 2024 (IPS)

Overnight, hundreds of people in the rural community of Las Mangas, located in Granma province in eastern Cuba, realised something they had already suspected: that the water they had been drinking for decades was not exactly crystal clear, but rather “salty”, as they say.

It was certainly a positive change, thanks to a desalination plant that started operating in August, five years after construction began in 2019, with a US$ 61,000 investment by the Granma Provincial Delegation of Hydraulic Resources.

“We did a test and the water coming from the plant freezes clear, while the water from the street freezes white, because of impurities. Now, with the plant, the people are happy,” community representative Rodolfo Echavarría, 55, told IPS.

Las Mangas is part of the municipality of Bayamo, the provincial capital, some 740 kilometres east of Havana. It has water networks that carry water from a well to the connections in the houses.

However, the water source contains a salinity rate exceeding one gram of soluble salts per litre of water, the limit permitted for human consumption by the country’s health authorities.“The desalination plant is a great benefit, a marvel. If something as necessary as water is not good, imagine the damage it causes to health": Óscar Fajardo.

“The desalination plant was built at the outlet of this brackish well, serving as an easy access point (where people can fetch the processed liquid with containers),” explained Yasser Vázquez, deputy sub-delegate of the Water Resources Delegation in Granma, in an interview with IPS in Bayamo.

The new facility, the third of its kind in the province, processes 2,000 litres of water a day and, according to the planners’ estimates, benefits 1,097 inhabitants. Echavarría believes that number rises to almost 2,000 people, since the villages of El Chungo, La Bayamesa and Santa María, all more than three kilometres from Las Mangas, also benefit.

The plant’s purification system uses the reverse osmosis method, one of the most widespread globally. There are others such as distillation, freezing, hydrate formation, flash evaporation or electrodialysis.

Reverse osmosis involves applying pressure to brackish water and making it flow through a semi-permeable membrane whose role is to allow the solvent (water) to pass through, but not the solute (dissolved salts).

In essence, the water in a pressurised saline solution is separated from the dissolved salts as it passes through the membrane and then goes through further rounds of filtration and chemical injection until it reaches the required standards of potability.

A local resident, Yoel González, 52, was trained to operate the plant and is in charge of its maintenance.

“You have to know how it works, because there are things that can go wrong, as has happened. I have lived all my life in Las Mangas and the best thing that has happened here is this (the installation of the desalination plant). Water has always been difficult. We used to drink that brackish water, and you could taste the acid and salt in it,” he told IPS.

Yoel Gonzáles Almeida, an operator at the pumping station of the desalination plant in the town of Las Mangas, Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

A change of scenery, or rather, of waters

In this village eight kilometres from the city of Bayamo, between 6:00 am and 6:00 pm, when the desalination plant opens, people gather at the site’s only existing tap and fill various-sized containers.

The water coming out of the tap in every home or facility in Las Mangas, the brackish water that barely comes out of the well chlorinated, is only used for cleaning, dishes, laundry and sometimes cooking. In this agricultural and livestock farming village, some farmers also use it to quench their animals’ thirst.

“When the plant was set up, people said at the beginning: ‘I drink it from the street, I’ve been drinking it all my life and I haven’t died’. Cubans are like that. But when they tried the new one, everything changed,” argued Echavarría, the community leader.

Nancy Gómez, 72, was born there and is one of the few people who resists the change.

“The neighbours are surprised because I don’t look for fresh water, but I’m used to it and it has never caused me any health problems. My children grew up drinking that (brackish) water. But my granddaughter does bring it from the plant for the children and I drink it from time to time. You can taste the difference,” she told IPS.

A view of the Las Mangas desalination plant in eastern Cuba, which provides the villagers with quality drinking water. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

Oscar Fajardo, 50, has always avoided drinking water from the well since he moved to Las Mangas four years ago from Guasimilla, eight kilometres away.

In his home town, the water tasted fresh and “sweet”, so he never got used to the new saltiness. Even after moving away, Fajardo still fetched it in Guasimilla on his electric motorbike whenever he visited his mother.

“I would look for water there or in other places. Sometimes I had to drink the bad one, but after seeing the sediment that accumulated in the knobs and pots, I tried to avoid it. People here have adapted to drinking brackish water, but a few found alternative ways,” he told IPS.

While it was common to boil and drink the tap water, some people who knew better or had more money would go to Bayamo or El Chungo to fill their own household containers, or buy the liquid from owners of horse-drawn carts, who would sell 200 litres for the equivalent of US$ 0.40.

“The desalination plant is a great benefit, a marvel. If something as necessary as water is not good, imagine the damage it causes to health,” said Fajardo.

A woman uses brackish water for household chores in the community of Las Mangas, eastern Cuba. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

Dangers of salinated water

The risks of consuming water with excess salt are varied: upset stomach, dehydration, high blood pressure, fluid retention in the body or kidney damage.

After all, salt contains, in addition to the chloride electrolyte, sodium, a mineral harmful to the human body in many ways when ingested in large quantities.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends an intake of no more than five grams of salt per day, equivalent to two grams (2000 mg) of sodium.

González, the operator of the Las Mangas desalination plant, said the community has several cases of kidney stones (also called nephrolithiasis or urolithiasis), which are hard deposits made of minerals and salts that form inside the kidneys and can affect any part of the urinary tract.

They may have arisen from prolonged consumption of brackish water, as several villagers interviewed by IPS suspect.

“One of my children complains when he urinates because of the stones, and he gets renal colics all the time,” said Gómez, the resident who is reluctant to drink the water processed by the plant.

Marisol Hildago, 37, also a resident of Las Mangas and mother of two, used to drink tap water until something caused her to start looking for water from El Chungo.

“My father suffered from chronic renal insufficiency and that’s why I started to look for water there. Now we only drink water from the plant and my father has improved,” she told IPS.

A view of the pumping station of the desalination plant in the town of Las Mangas. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

Water issues in the province

Las Mangas is not the only community in Granma with water-related issues. There are others where the subsurface basins and water sources have high levels of salinity, which often receive drinking water from tanker trucks.

Granma, known as the ‘Key to the Cauto’ (river), where the longest watercourse in all the Antilles flows at 343 kilometres, also has a low-isometric relief and boggy areas, which makes it more vulnerable to seawater encroachment and saline intrusion into the water table, as happens in Las Mangas and other places.

Some scholars claim that the river’s flow has decreased in part due to climate change, deforestation and the construction of the Cauto del Paso reservoir, the third largest in the country and inaugurated in 1992.

With the lowering of the river level, seawater encroaches with greater force through the course itself, affecting the water basins of some lands at the mouth of the Cauto.

This province with 804,000 people – in a country with a population of 10 million – has had a stable water situation with its supply sources since the heavy rains of June 2023, which, in addition to filling reservoirs and restoring the water table, destroyed part of the infrastructure.

Marisol Hidalgo drinks potable water in the kitchen of her home, obtained from the desalination plant located in the community of Las Mangas. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

Granma generally suffers from droughts which, according to water authorities, affect up to 100,000 of its inhabitants.

When this happens, river flow decreases and saline intrusion from the sea increases, disabling numerous wells, especially the shallower, artisanal ones, which are a solution for residents in places that are difficult to access.

The other major problem lies in the accessibility of water networks and the availability of the service, as only 76% of the province’s population receives piped water in their homes and only 38.7% (some 310,000 people) receive water at home at least once every three days.

Other more affected areas, such as the coastal municipality of Manzanillo, can get water supplies for up to 20 days. In all, more than 66,000 residents are supplied by water tankers.

A further 15 desalination plants are planned for Granma, to be added to the dozens existing throughout the country. In the last decade, the Cuban government has promoted the construction of these hydraulic works, both in communities with salinised water sources and in industries and beach resorts.

If the desalination plants win the bet, Chile's water delivery trucks, with their unpredictable schedules and high operating costs, will become a thing of the past. The photo shows the small cove of Chigualoco, in northern Chile, with a few fishing boats and the ground covered with black seaweed (Lessonia spicata), macroalgae that the fishermen dry in the sun. The seaweed is not extracted from the small coastal rocks because it is the food for prized mollusks whose harvesting season ends in June. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

By Orlando Milesi
LOS VILOS, Chile , Mar 24 2022 (IPS)

The Pacific Ocean could quench the thirst caused by 10 years of drought in Chile, but the operation of desalination plants of various sizes has a long way to go to become sustainable and to serve society as a whole rather than just corporations.

Some twenty of these plants are already in operation providing desalinated water to small fishing communities, another three to the inhabitants of various municipalities and eight more to large mining companies, all but one of which are concentrated in Chile’s arid North.

The extensive development and availability of solar and wind energy has lowered the operating cost of desalinating and purifying seawater, which offers hope for a stable supply of water in this Southern Cone country with 4,270 kilometers of coastline.

This year, 184 municipalities are under a water shortage decree, 53 percent of the total, affecting 8.2 of the 19.4 million inhabitants of this long narrow country that runs along the western side of southern South America, between the Pacific coast and the Andes mountains.

Three years ago an analysis published in Radiografía del Agua: Brecha y Riesgo Hídrico de Chile (Radiography of Water: Water Gap and Risk in Chile) warned that “freshwater reserves in the basins are shrinking.”

“Seventy-two percent of the data shows that the water level in aquifers is decreasing at a statistically significant rate and all the glaciers studied so far, which are less than one percent of the existing ones, have reduced their areal and/or frontal surface from 2000 onwards, with only one exception (the El Rincón glacier, located on the outskirts of Santiago),” the report states.

Roberto Collao (left), president of the Chigualoco fishermen’s union, and Miguel Barraza, secretary of the organization, stand next to one of the drums that hold desalinated water and next to the plant’s operating hut, located in this small fishing village in the arid north of Chile. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Relief for artisanal fishers

Roberto Collao, president of the fishermen’s union of Chigualoco, a small cove 240 km north of Santiago in the municipality of Los Vilos, told IPS how this technical data translates into reality and how a desalination plant came to their aid.

“We had no drinking water. We brought it from our homes in Los Vilos, 20 minutes from here. The water trucks came every 15 days and a lot of people come here in summer,” he explained in the fishermen’s cove, the local name given to the small inlets that abound along the Chilean coast.

Sitting next to the association’s boats, on a beach full of seaweed laid out to dry, he proudly said that “we are now taking 5,000 liters a day out of the sea and turning it into freshwater for consumption, for washing our diving suits and for cleaning our catch.”

In the recently concluded fishing season, the 30 artisanal fishermen of Chigualoco, who have three managed fishing areas, caught 100,000 Chilean abalones (Concholepas concholepas), a highly prized mollusk or large edible sea snail native to the coasts of Chile and its neighbor to the north, Peru.

Similar small desalination plants were installed in the northern region of Coquimbo where the town is located, financed with public funds.

One of them is in Maitencillo, across from Canela, the municipality with the highest poverty rate in Chile.

But it has not been working for four months because “the pump that extracted the salt water broke down, there were problems with the filters,” Herjan Torreblanca, president of the Caleta Maitencillo union, told IPS on a tour of towns with desalination plants in the region.

“The water we got was so fresh, like bottled water. It produced 8,000 liters a day,” he recalled with nostalgia, expressing hope that the plant would be fixed soon.

Photo of a pipe that carries seawater to the desalination plant installed in the Chigualoco cove, where an association of 30 fishermen operates. The plant’s annual operating cost is approximately 2,500 dollars. Located in the Chilean municipality of Los Vilos, the plant mainly runs on solar power and collects water through a small pipe connected to a pump. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Looking out to sea

The year 2021 was the driest in Chile’s history, and a recurrent water deficit is predicted for the future. As a result, the public and the country’s authorities are looking mainly to the sea to provide water in the future, as well as to the glaciers of their Andean peaks.

In his first press conference for foreign correspondents on his third day in office on Mar. 14, President Gabriel Boric referred to the water crisis and announced the aim to “move forward with desalination, while also taking charge of the externalities it generates. In particular, what to do with the brine.”

“One problem is drought and another is the poor use of water resources and water rights. We have to make progress in the modernization of the area and in better use of gray water,” he added.

In fact, only less than 30 percent of Chilean agriculture uses technified irrigation, in a country whose economy is based on export agribusiness, mining, particularly copper mining, and large-scale fishing. Meanwhile, family agriculture and artisanal fishing are the most affected by the water deficit, despite their importance in labor and social terms.

In Chile, water rights are in private hands. Now water, including sea water, is the focus of debate and would be given a new definition in the new constitution, the draft of which must be completed by Jul. 4 by the members of the constitutional convention and which will be approved or rejected by voters in a September or October referendum.

Minera Escondida, the world’s largest copper-producing mine owned by the Australian-British company BHP, located at 3,200 meters above sea level, uses water piped 180 kilometers from a desalination plant on the coast to the Antofagasta region where it is located.

In late 2019, the Escondida Water Supply Expansion (EWS) was installed, “which allowed us to stop drawing water from the well and to use 100 percent seawater, a unique milestone worldwide,” explained Hada Matrás, the mine´s production manager.

Mining companies in Chile plan to increase their eight desalination plants currently in operation to 15 by 2028.

Miguel Barraza, secretary of the Chigualoco fishermen’s union, which operates the desalination plant they use in that cove in the northern Chilean municipality of Los Vilos. Now that they have water, the fishermen plan to open a restaurant and build a multipurpose building. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Of the three plants designed to supply water to municipalities, the Nueva Atacama plant, operating since December, stands out. Built with a public investment of 250 million dollars and later transferred to a private consortium, it produces 450 liters per second (L/s) and supplies the municipalities of Tierra Amarilla, Caldera, Copiapó and Chañaral, which are located around 800 kilometers north of Santiago.

But desalination will not be confined to the North, where water is most urgently needed. For the first time, a desalination plant, Nuevosur, has also been installed in the south of Chile, in Iloca, 288 kilometers from Santiago.

The investment totaled 2.5 million dollars and the plant seeks to “increase the availability of water and cover the rising demand that occurs mainly in the (southern hemisphere) summer,” the company told IPS.

“The project will be executed in two stages: during the first phase – which has already been developed – the system will allow us to treat 15 L/s and in the second phase we will reach a treatment level of 26 L/s,” said the Nuevosur spokesman.

Pros and cons of desalination

Several associations created the Chilean Desalination Association and defend the process as “an excellent solution to address the water challenges of our country, as it does not depend on hydrology.”

“It is a proven, reliable and affordable technology. This combination of factors has boosted the incorporation of desalination in various production processes and has favored the growth of this industry,” the Association states.

One crucial question is what will be done with the brine left over from the process. Environmentalists fear that large blocks of salt will be dumped in the ocean, affecting the ecosystem and species living in coastal areas.

Small desalination plants produce almost no brine, so the focus is on mining companies and water distributors.

The Pelambres copper mine, with estimated reserves of 4.9 billion tons and owned by the Luksic group and a consortium of Japanese companies, has its storage and loading terminal in the northern part of the Chilean municipality of Los Vilos. From there it extracts water for desalination and use in its operations. There are already eight mines with desalination plants and by 2028 there will be 15. CREDIT: Orlando Milesi/IPS

Liesbeth Van der Meer, executive director of Oceana Chile, told IPS that “desalination is one of the solutions, but there is great concern that it is seen as the only alternative.

“They are really looking to Israel and Qatar for solutions. However, the first thing Europe always focused on was water efficiency and in Chile this has not been worked on,” said the representative of the world’s largest organization dedicated to the defense of the oceans.

Van der Meer explained that the desalination plants that damage the ecosystem “are the ones that range from 500 to more than 1000 L/s, because of the suction and all the salt they throw back into the sea.”

Desalination “has many socio-environmental costs that have not been considered. If the plant is very close to a cove, for example, the brine and substances used to prevent the accumulation of biological species in pipes produce environmental damage in the bays,” she explained.

“You can’t extrapolate from Israel to Chile because our sea has other qualities with the Humboldt Current that goes from south to north bringing nutrients. And getting beyond the Humboldt Current to deposit brine is quite costly,” she said.

As an example of the impacts, Van der Meer said: “We have seen places like Mejillones (a municipality in the northern region of Antofagasta), where there is a large desalination plant, and within a range of five kilometers there are no fish or any kind of life and the water is turquoise – not because it is clean but because there is no life there.”

The environmentalist demanded a national water plan to regulate the construction of desalination plants and called for the protection of the 10 miles of territorial waters “where a large part of the wealth of fishing resources is located.”

Ricardo Cabezas, an aerospace physicist and geomatician, agreed that “legislation is needed to oblige those companies that use seawater to have a monitoring system and oceanographic studies to understand the flow of currents.”

“Temperature differences are not high when desalinating because in the reverse osmosis process there is no thermal plant,” he said.

And with respect to brine, he explained to IPS that “there are experiences at the international level where many minerals are recovered from the salt.”

According to Cabezas, “20 percent of the waste can be optimally managed if you reuse part of the brine by reprocessing it to obtain rare earths, rhenium and other common minerals.

“You can add value to salt and it becomes a raw material rather than a waste material,” he stressed.

Cabezas said that: “If we manage to solve the brine problem, we will make a qualitative leap and the main beneficiary will be the Chilean population because the crucial water problem will be solved.”

The academic pointed out that the Nueva Atacama plant, for example, managed to “attenuate the effect on the sea with diffusers that do not produce a concentration of salt at the end of the pipeline’s route, but instead spurt it out over a stretch of one kilometer.”

High-density polyethylene pipe is laid on a street in the Cuban capital, where the Aguas de La Habana water company is upgrading the water supply networks in the municipality of Centro Habana. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

By Luis Brizuela
HAVANA, Feb 23 2021 (IPS)

With the construction of aqueducts, water purification and desalination plants, and investments to upgrade hydraulic infrastructure, Cuba is seeking to manage the impacts of droughts and floods that are intensifying with climate change.

The “initiative to strengthen hydrological monitoring” in Cuba, signed in Havana on Feb. 11, aims to boost capacities to measure, transmit, process and analyse hydrological variables and systematically assess water availability at the national level.

According to water sector authorities, the modernisation and optimisation of hydrological observation networks will be an essential component of early warning systems for floods and droughts.

The initiative will be implemented by the National Water Resources Institute (INRH), with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and funding from Russia.

It also plans to redesign the observation network for both groundwater and surface water quality, explained INRH Director of Hydrology and Hydrogeology Argelio Fernandez.

The initiative is in line with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, which calls on governments to ensure availability and sustainable management of water, as well as sanitation.

It also responds to national policies and priorities contained in “Tarea Vida”, the government plan in place since 2017 to address climate change.

Among its multiple strategic guidelines, the plan aims to ensure the availability and efficient use of water to cope with droughts, based on the application of technologies to save water and meet local demand.

It also urges the optimisation of hydraulic infrastructure and its maintenance, as well as the introduction of actions to measure water efficiency and productivity.

The Ejército Rebelde reservoir is located near the Parque Lenin recreational complex in Havana. Cuba has more than 240 dams with a reservoir capacity of over nine billion cubic metres of water, as part of the infrastructure designed to guarantee a water supply to the population and promote industrial development plans, agricultural irrigation and flood control. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Pathways for water

The long, narrow shape of the island of Cuba, the largest in the Cuban archipelago, means many rivers are short and the water flow is low and highly dependent on rainfall, more abundant in the May to October wet season and during the passage of tropical storms.

With average annual rainfall of 1,330 mm, the records show that rains are increasingly scarce, particularly in the eastern region where the country’s longest and largest rivers, the Cauto and Toa, respectively, are located.

From 2014 to 2017, the country faced the greatest drought in 115 years, affecting 70 percent of the national territory.

Studies predict that Cuba’s climate will tend toward less rainfall, higher temperatures and more intense droughts, and that by 2100 water availability could be reduced by more than 35 percent.

Another consequence of climate change is that sea levels are projected to rise, a phenomenon that will aggravate saltwater intrusion, to which 574 human settlements and 263 water supply sources are currently vulnerable, according to official figures.

Law No. 124 of the Land Water Law has been guiding the integrated and sustainable management of water since 2017, while the new constitution in force since April 2019 protects the right of Cubans to drinking water and sanitation, with due remuneration and rational use.

Since 1959, the government has promoted an ambitious engineering programme for artificial water reservoirs, to guarantee the water supply for a population that almost doubled to 11.2 million inhabitants since then, and to promote plans for industrial development and agricultural irrigation.

The data shows that from just over a dozen small reservoirs six decades ago, there are now more than 240 in the 15 provinces and the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud – the second largest island in the archipelago – with a storage capacity of more than nine billion cubic metres.

According to the 2020 Statistical Yearbook, more than 95 percent of the Cuban population has access to drinking water, but only 86.5 percent of the urban population and 42.2 percent of the rural population receives piped water at home.

Workers of the Aguas de La Habana water company lay a high-density polyethylene pipe to supply drinking water in the Peñas Altas district, near Guanabo beach, in eastern Havana. Part of the hydraulic investments made by Cuba in the sector are supported by international cooperation through projects and funds from other countries and international organisations. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

Despite the economic crisis the country has suffered for three decades and the impact of the U.S. embargo since 1962, in recent years millions of dollars have been invested to mitigate the water deficit and improve water quality.

Among the engineering works, the water transfer aqueducts stand out, with more than a dozen throughout the country, considered strategic pillars in building resilience to the effects of climate change.

These interconnected systems of dams, canals, aqueducts, tunnels and bridges transfer water hundreds of kilometres from places where it is abundant to agricultural and industrial areas and human settlements.

They also make it possible to control floods, lessen the impact of drought and allow the siting of hydroelectric power plants.

Cuba has three plants that produce high-density polyethylene pipes 1,200 mm in diameter for laying new aqueducts and to replace the aging and leaking hydraulic infrastructure that in some cities is over 100 years old.

It also seeks to prioritise the manufacture of fittings and parts for domestic water supply networks, where almost a quarter of the piped water is lost.

Of the total investment in the water system, which in recent years has averaged more than 400 million pesos (16.5 million dollars) a year, more than half comes from the government budget for construction and assembly.

The rest comes from international cooperation through projects and funds from nations such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Japan, Spain, France and the OPEC Fund for International Development.

Thanks to these investments, in the 2018-2020 period, desalination plants were inaugurated in the provinces of Havana, Matanzas, Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Guantánamo and the municipality of Isla de la Juventud, in order to create easy access points in populations affected by high levels of salinity in their water supply sources.

Meanwhile, in Camagüey, the third most populated city in Cuba located 538 km east of the capital, a water treatment plant with a capacity to process 1,800 litres of water per second is nearing completion, which will make it the largest in the country.

Although the water that reaches most homes is treated and chlorinated, people remain concerned about the presence of microorganisms or salt that require boiling.

“It would be useful if shops sold water filters more frequently and at affordable prices, because they help protect our health,” a Havana resident, Yolanda Soler, told IPS.

However, building resilience also involves encouraging a water culture in the business and private sectors and among citizens as a whole, hydroeconomics engineer Luis Bruzón, who lives in the western province of Mayabeque, told IPS in a telephone interview.

“Do we know how much water is used to produce a ton of a given agricultural or industrial product or to provide a specific service?” asked Bruzón, who believes that having such data would improve decision-making in a nation that must increasingly optimise and save water.

This projected desalination plant in Los Cabos, whose construction received final approval in October 2020, will have a capacity to purify 250 litres of water per second and its cost will exceed 55 million dollars, according to figures from the Baja California Sur state government. CREDIT: Government of Baja California Sur

By Emilio Godoy
MEXICO CITY, Jan 31 2021 (IPS)

Mexico is seeking to mitigate water shortages in part of its extensive territory by resorting to seawater, through the expansion of desalination plants. But this solution has exorbitant costs and significant environmental impacts.

Among the advantages of these water treatment plants, Gabriela Muñoz, a researcher at the public university El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, highlighted the expansion of water sources and the production of water for human consumption.

But in her conversation with IPS, she also underlined the disadvantages of these plants, such as high energy requirements, aggravated if the energy comes from fossil sources; high costs; and the generation of brine and wastewater."Before considering desalination, measures such as water saving, investment in green infrastructure, rainwater harvesting and the reuse of treated water should be a priority. We must also compare the costs of building desalination plants versus alternatives.” -- Gabriela Muñoz

To illustrate the costs: one of the desalination plants authorised in 2014 by the National Water Commission (CONAGUA) in the northern state of Baja California cost some 35 million dollars to process 250 litres per second (l/s). Another plant with the same capacity, given final approval in October 2020 in the neighbouring state of Baja California Sur, will require an investment of more than 55 million dollars.

In Mexico “there are no regulations regarding how to dispose of the brine. The most common thing to do is to dump it on the beach. We have to be careful how we handle the brine because of the toxicity to ecosystems. Nor is there installed capacity to treat all the wastewater. For specific areas, desalination should not be the first option,” said Muñoz from the northern border city of Tijuana.

Between 2012 and 2020, environmental authorities authorised at least 120 desalination facilities, rejected six applications and another five are under evaluation, according to data obtained by IPS through public information requests. Most of the new projects are located in three states with acute water shortages: the northwestern states of Baja California and Baja California Sur, and the southeastern state of Quintana Roo.

However, in Mexico, where more than 400 such plants operate, there has been no research on their ecological effects, as corroborated by IPS, with the exception of the study “Desalination of water”, published in 2000 by the government’s Mexican Water Institute.

One basic desalination technique is thermal distillation, in which seawater is heated until it evaporates, the vapor condenses to form freshwater, and the remaining liquid is discarded as concentrated brine.

Another is reverse osmosis, in which water is filtered and then pumped at high pressure through thin membranes that only allow the liquid to pass through and retain the salt.

Global context

In 2019, the study “The State of Desalination and Brine Production: A Global Outlook”, produced by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, based in Ontario, Canada, warned of the growing generation of brine and its serious effects on the environment. The process of extracting brine, it estimated, accumulated a total of 142 million cubic metres (m3) of waste worldwide that year.

There are 18,214 desalination plants around the world, with an installed capacity of 89 million m3 per day, serving more than 300 million people, according to the latest data from the International Desalination Association. For every litre of water desalinated, a litre of brine is produced.

These plants are part of a trend towards the introduction of this technology in areas facing the threat of water stress or scarcity.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (C) visited Los Cabos, on the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula at the northwestern tip of Mexico, in August, where he confirmed the construction of the larger of two new desalination plants in the state of Baja California Sur. Mexico already has 400 seawater treatment plants, but experts warn about the excessive costs and environmental impacts. CREDIT: Government of Baja California Sur

Water availability in Mexico

Mexico, Latin America’s second largest economy, has an area of 1.96 million square kilometres, 67 percent of which is arid and semi-arid land.

According to CONAGUA, water availability varies widely in this country of 129 million people, as it is scarce in the north and abundant in the south.

Of every 100 litres of rainfall, 72 return to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration, 22 run off into rivers and streams, and six feed 653 aquifers, of which 108 were overexploited, 32 had saline soils or brackish water, and 18 had seawater infiltration due to rising sea levels and seepage into the water table.

Although Mexico had a low national water stress level in 2017 – 19.5 percent – its risk of water stress is high, according to the Aqueduct platform, developed by the Aqueduct Alliance, made up of governments, companies and foundations.

In fact, Mexico is the second most water-stressed country in the Americas, after Chile. Water stress could be a problem by 2040 from the centre to the north of the country.

Meanwhile, the extreme northwest presents a medium-high risk of aquifer depletion and practically the entire Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea present a medium-high risk of drought, precisely where most of the desalination plants are located.

Aqueduct takes into account 13 indicators of water stress, such as groundwater availability and depletion.

In the last five months, drought has worsened in Mexico – the third worst record of the century – a consequence of the climate crisis, according to data from the National Meteorological Service.

In Mexico water use is intense, reflected in its water footprint – the impact of human activities on water – of 1,978 m3/person per year, compared to a global average of 1,385.

As a result, national and regional authorities have set their sights on seawater, given that Mexico is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and there are a total of 150 municipalities with a coastline, out of a total of 2,466, according to the National Policy on Mexico’s Seas and Coasts.

This screenshot from a video by the Baja California Sur government in northwestern Mexico shows the site of the new desalination plant to be built in Los Cabos, next to the sea, including details of the different processes used to make the water from the Pacific Ocean fit for human consumption. CREDIT: IPS

Scalable model

This year, Héctor Aviña, an academic at the Engineering Research Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, plans to scale up his prototype geothermal-powered desalination plant in the city of Los Cabos, located in Baja California Sur, some 1,650 kilometres northwest of Mexico City.

“I don’t know if it is the best option because of brine generation and well exploitation, but it is a good alternative. Many areas are already experiencing water stress. In those places, desalination and beach wells can help aquifers recover,” Aviña told IPS from Mexico City.

The 500,000 dollar plan consists of upgrading a pilot plant from the current capacity of four m3 per day to 40 m3 and, if possible, to 400 m3, in an initiative to be developed with the state-owned Mexican Centre for Innovation in Geothermal Energy.

The project will take advantage of nearby hot water wells to obtain water and geothermal energy.

With this technology, the cost per m3 of water ranges from 0.8 to 1.3 dollars, compared to 0.6 to 1.00 dollars using reverse osmosis.

The National Infrastructure Investment Agreement, signed between the federal government and members of the business community in November 2020, includes the foundations for four desalination plants in Baja California, Baja California Sur and Sonora, with an investment of 643 million dollars and a capacity of 650 l/s.

But Muñoz suggested that before turning to desalination, poor irrigation practices, leaks and aging infrastructure should be addressed.

“Before considering desalination, measures such as water saving, investment in green infrastructure, rainwater harvesting and the reuse of treated water should be a priority. We must also compare the costs of building desalination plants versus alternatives,” she said.

In 2014 Aviña designed a reverse osmosis model equipped with solar panels and batteries, which has competitive costs.

“In other areas, the source of energy must be reviewed. Mexico is going to have water problems, it is a situation that we will have to live with. If we study it well, if we manage it well, desalination is a good alternative,” he argued.

Karlis Noel has invented the Eastern Caribbean's first solar-powered, mobile desalination plant.

By Alison Kentish
CASTRIES , Mar 11 2019 (IPS)

Karlis Noel spends his days in his lab in the small, picturesque community of Laborie in St. Lucia. The former fisherman’s story might sound like an overnight success, but his present accolades in the field of engineering are the result of years of hard work and an unceasing drive to make life easier for communities in the throes of a water crisis.

Noel was not able to complete secondary school, but he never allowed that to interfere with his thirst for knowledge. The self-taught inventor, with a knack for engineering, is receiving acclaim for building the Eastern Caribbean’s first solar-powered, mobile desalination plant. With a grant from the Global Environment Facility Small Grants Program (GEF-SGP) to the Laborie Fishers and Consumers Cooperative Project, Noel was able to build the facility, which can produce 1,000 gallons of water daily.

The facility is a marvel to behold. It is located near the ocean, opens up ‘transformers-style’ to get the desalination process going andif there is a storm, it can be folded up, taken away and stored in a safe place until the all-clear is given.

In 2018, Noel built a second generation desalination facility for the Government of Nauru in the Pacific, a country beset with problems sourcing potable water. His determination to help solve the water crises was recently recognised by the Government of St. Lucia. Noel received the Saint Lucia Les Pitons Medal (Gold) for having performed long and meritorious service in the field of entrepreneurship and community development.

IPS spoke to Noel from his lab about his plans for the future, the destination for his next solar-powered mobile desalination unit and why he always has Dominica in mind when hammering away on his units. Excerpts of the interview follow:

Inter Press Service (IPS): Your solar-powered, mobile desalination unit is creating waves and has made it across the world to help the country of Nauru deal with its water crisis. Did you ever think that your invention would one day help nations?

Karlis Noel (KN): I knew it was going to make waves, but what surprised me was the short space of time it took to gain such wide appeal, after the very first video of the facility hit social media. It’s such a good feeling to help a country that needs potable water. I didn’t do it with money in mind, I wanted to help, to make a difference. Just knowing that I can assist in this way is an accomplishment for me.

IPS: Walk me through the process. How exactly does the system work? What sets it apart from other desalination facilities?

KN: Desalination in itself is not new. Reverse osmosis is not new. It is mature technology. What makes this system different is that it is fully mobile and solar powered and there is no brine discharged into the sea. There is a waste management system.

The other thing is that the latest system I developed works on a very broad spectrum. So it can purify anything from fresh water to highly saline water, making it possible to use it by the sea or the river or any source of contaminated water. That’s what makes it unique.

IPS: Tell me about the original problem that your community of Laborie faced, which gave rise to this invention?

KN: Strangely, during droughts we have no water, but one would think that when it rains we actually have a lot of water, but this is not the case. When it rains, the water company has to shut down the system due to debris etc, so we have a situation where when there’s drought we are without and when it rains we are also without water.

IPS: Can this facility help other communities facing water crises?

KN: Definitely, but there is also an issue that I have noted from my research work with farmers. The sea water levels are rising and this means that salt water is entering our rivers at a faster rate. The farmers in some communities (for example Roseau in St. Lucia) are faced with a serious problem as they can no longer irrigate their crops with water from the river. Farmers in the community of Black Bay (south of St. Lucia) are facing a similar problem. We are now getting salt water, two miles into the river. So this presents another aspect of the water scarcity issue, with salt water taking over our rivers. Eventually these communities will need a machine like this to ensure there is fresh water to irrigate fields.

IPS: How do you see it helping post disaster in our region?

KN: This is the bigger goal of this project. What I’m trying to do right now is shrink the facility. If I can make it both smaller and more efficient, for example being able to get 10,000 or 20,000 gallons of fresh water a day from a much smaller unit, this would be ideal.

It means it can be easily deployed post-disaster. This is important to me because we are going to get more severe storms. It will be necessary to have smaller, more affordable systems with higher output.

My dream is to design a unit that can fit in the back of a car, easily put on board a helicopter, for easy transportation to any community or country that needs it.

For some reason, when I’m designing, I have Dominica in mind. I know what that country went through following the devastation of Hurricane Maria and I want to ensure that I can do my part to help any sister island in their time of need.

A desalination plant. Across 177 countries, there are now 16,000 desalination plants, many of which are concentrated in the Middle East and North Africa where water scarcity is already a reality. As desalination plants continue to pop up, so does a hypersaline, chemical by-product known as brine. Credit: RoPlant

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 16 2019 (IPS)

As the threat of water scarcity increasingly grows, many have turned to the Earth’s plentiful oceans for a solution. However, this has created a new risk threatening public and environmental health: brine.

In a new study, the United Nations University’s Institute for Water, Environment, and Health (UNU-INWEH) assessed the state of desalination around the world as countries increasingly convert sea water into freshwater for its citizens.

“There is an increasing level of water scarcity across the globe, but there are hot spots of water scarcity like those in the Middle East and parts of Africa. They really need an additional supply of water that they can use to meet the requirements of their population,” one of the report’s authors Manzoor Qadir told IPS.

Across 177 countries, there are now 16,000 desalination plants, many of which are concentrated in the Middle East and North Africa where water scarcity is already a reality.

As desalination plants continue to pop up, so does a hypersaline, chemical by-product known as brine.

In fact, for every litre of freshwater a plant produces, 1.5 litres of brine is produced, a figure that is 50 percent more than previously estimated.

Globally, desalination plants produce enough brine in one year to cover all of Florida in one foot of the waste.

“Historically what we used to see was the equal volumes of brine versus desalinated water—that is not true…there is more brine produced than desalinated water. It really needs efficient management,” Qadir said.

Countries are increasingly turning to the oceans as a solution to water scarcity. Pictured here is Sri Lanka’s southern coast near Hikkaduwa town. Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS

The study, which is the first to quantify brine production across the world, found that just four countries are responsible for 55 percent of global brine: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar.

Almost 80 percent of brine is produced in plants near the ocean and are often discharged back into the ocean, posing major risks to ocean life and marine ecosystems.

According to the UNU-INWEH report, untreated brine increases both the temperature and salt concentration of sea water. Together, these conditions decreases the water’s oxygen levels, impacting sea organisms and the food chain.

The desalination process also uses toxic chemicals such as copper and chlorine, polluting oceans when released.

As desalination plants are predicted to increase in number, the assessment highlighted the need for improved brine management strategies to avoid further and future environmental damage.

The report’s authors pointed to the various economic opportunities to use brine including in the irrigation of salt tolerant crops,  electricity generation, and even aquaculture.

“Using saline drainage water offers potential commercial, social and environmental gains.  Reject brine has been used for aquaculture, with increases in fish biomass of 300 percent achieved,” Qadir said.

“”There is a need to translate such research and convert an environmental problem into an economic opportunity,” he added.

But first and foremost, countries need to minimise the volume of brine produced including the adoption of more efficient modern technologies, Qadir noted.

“[Middle Eastern countries] especially need to take concrete action just to make sure that there is an environmentally feasible management of brine,” he told IPS, while also acknowledging the importance of desalination.

UNU-INWEH found that eight countries including the Maldives, Singapore, Antigua and Barbuda and Qatar can meet all their water needs through desalination. And it is predicted that more and more countries will rely on such plants for their water needs.

“We need to raise the importance of global water scarcity and the key contributions of desalinated water, but at the same time we should not just ignore the other part of desalinated technology which is brine production,” Qadir concluded.

The Shams 1 concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in the United Arab Emirates covers an area the size of 285 football pitches and generates over 100 MW of electricity for the country’s national grid. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

By Wambi Michael
ABU DHABI, Jan 26 2015 (IPS)

With global energy needs projected to increase by 35 percent by 2035, a new report says meeting this demand could increase water withdrawals in the energy sector unless more cost effective renewable energy sources are deployed in power, water and food production.

The report, titled “Renewable Energy in the Water, Energy & Food Nexus” by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), says that integrating renewable energy in the agrifood supply chain alone could help to rein in cost volatility, bolster energy security, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to long-term food sustainability.

The  report, launched at the International Water Summit (Jan. 18-21) in Abu Dhabi, examines how adopting renewables can ease trade-offs by providing less resource-intensive energy services compared with conventional energy technologies. Integrating renewable energy in the agrifood supply chain alone could help to rein in cost volatility, bolster energy security, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to long-term food sustainability

“Globally, an energy system with substantial shares of renewables, in particular solar photovoltaics and wind power, would save significant amounts of water, thereby reducing strains on limited water resources,” said IRENA Director-General Adnan Z. Amin.

Unfortunately, he said, detailed knowledge on the role of renewable energy at the intersection of energy, food and water has so far been limited.

In addition to the water-saving potential of renewable energy, the report also shows that renewable energy-based desalination technologies could play an increasing role in providing clean drinking water for people around the world.

Amin said although renewable desalination may still be relatively expensive, decreasing renewable energy costs, technology advancements and increasing scales of deployment make it a cost-effective and sustainable solution in the long term.

Dr Rabia Ferroukhi, Deputy Director of IRENA’s Knowledge, Policy and Finance division, told IPS that “water, energy and food systems are inextricably linked: water and energy are needed to produce food; water is needed for most power generation; and energy is required to treat and transport water in what is known as ‘the water-energy-food nexus’.”

She said deployment of renewable energy is already showing positive results in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with an over 50 percent cost share of global desalination capacity.

Some 120 kilometres southwest of Abu Dhabi lies the Shams 1 concentrated solar power (CSP) plant, which generates over 100 MW of electricity for the United Arab Emirates national grid.

Shams 1, which was designed and developed by Shams Power Company, a joint venture among Masdar (60 percent), Total (20 percent) and Abengoa Solar (20 percent), accounts for almost 68 percent of the Gulf’s renewable energy capacity and close to 10 percent of the world’s installed CSP capacity.

Abdulaziz Albaidli, Sham’s Plant Manager, told IPS during a visit to the plant that the project reduces the UAE’s carbon emissions, displacing approximately 175,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year.

Located in the middle of the desert and covering an area of 2.5 km² – or 285 football fields – Shams 1 incorporates the latest in parabolic trough technology and features more than 258,000 mirrors mounted on 768 tracking parabolic trough collectors.

By concentrating heat from direct sunlight onto oil-filled pipes, Shams 1 produces steam, which drives a turbine and generates electricity. Shams 1 also features a dry-cooling system that significantly reduces water consumption – a critical advantage in the arid desert.

“This plant has been built to be a hybrid plant which allows us to produce electricity at very high efficiency, as well as allowing us to produce electricity when there is no sun. Also the use of an air-cooled condenser allows us to save two hundred million gallons of water. That is a very important feature in a country where water is scarce,” said.

In addition, he continued, “the electricity we produce is able to provide twenty thousand homes with a steady supply of electricity for refrigeration, air conditioning, lighting and so on.”

Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of Masdar – the majority shareholder in Shams 1 – told delegates at the just concluded Abu Dhabi World Future Energy Summit (Jan. 18-21) that “through Masdar, we are redefining the role our country will play in delivering energy to the world.”

“From precious hydrocarbons exports to commercially viable renewable energy projects,” he said, “we are extending our legacy for future generations.”

Morocco is another country aiming to become a world-class renewable energy producer and is eyeing the chance to export clean electricity to nearby Europe through the water, energy and food nexus.

Its first CSP plant located in the southern desert city of Ouarzazate, which is now operational, is part of a major plan to produce over 2,000 megawatts (MW) at an estimated cost of nine billion dollars with funding from the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the European Investment Bank.

Meanwhile, South Africa is taking advantage of a solar-powered dry cooling system to generate power. In collaboration with Spanish-based CSP technology giant Abengoa Solar, the country is installing two plants – Khi Solar One and KaXu Solar One – that will generate up to 17,800 MW of renewable energy by 2030 and reduce its dependence on oil and natural gas.

Dr Linus Mafor, an analyst with the IRENA’s Innovation and Technology Centre, told IPS that there is an encouraging trend across the globe with countries implementing projects that aim to account for the interdependencies and trade-offs among the water, energy and food sectors.

He said that the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) is one of the promoters of the water, energy and food nexus in six Asian countries which are integrating the approach into development processes.  According to Mafor, such initiatives will see more affordable and sustainable renewable energy deployed in water, energy and food production in the near future.

The Austria-based Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) is one of the supporters of the nexus among clean energy, food production and water provision. Its Director-General, Martin Hiller, told IPS that understanding the inter-linkages among water resources, energy production and food security and managing them holistically is critical to global sustainability.

The agrifood industry, he said, accounts for over 80 percent of total freshwater use, 30 percent of total energy demand, and 12 to 30 percent of man-made greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

REEEP is supporting countries like Kenya, Indonesia, Kenya and Burkina Faso, among others, in developing solar-powered pumps for irrigation, with the aim of improving energy efficiency.

Edited by Phil Harris  

The decontamination technique consists of using biological systems that act as digesters to counteract the polluting effects of mining. Credit: Courtesy University of Santiago

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Nov 3 2014 (IPS)

Combating the negative effects of its own production processes is one of the challenges facing the mining industry, one of the pillars of the Chilean economy.

Now, thanks to a novel scientific innovation project, mining, which is highly criticised by environmentalists, could become a sustainable industry, at least in some segments of its production processes.

The phytotechnology project was created by Claudia Ortiz, a doctor in biochemistry from the University of Santiago. Using native plants, she and her team of researchers are working to treat, stabilise and remedy soil and water affected by industrial activities, a process known as “phytoremediation”.

“These technologies can make a significant contribution to the environment because they make it possible to advance towards industrial development in a sustainable manner, while also contributing on the social front by making it possible to confront the undesired effects of production by involving the community,” the Chilean scientist said in an interview with Tierramérica.

“We want to become a global reference point for these kinds of innovative environmental solutions,” she added.

Doctor in biochemistry Claudia Ortiz, coordinator of the phytotechnology project of the University of Santiago, which remedies soil using native plants. Credit: Courtesy University of Santiago

Phytotechnologies are based on the use of native plants and microorganisms, which are selected for their process of acclimatisation in economically exploited areas. In Chile, the plants used include naturalised phragmites australis and species from the baccharis and atriplex genuses.

Ortiz’s research, which began in the early 2000s, initially focused on determining why some species of plant are able to grow in difficult conditions, such as poor quality soil.

“We focused on tolerance of metals, and a line of research emerged that allowed us to determine that some species of plants and microorganisms had certain capacities to tolerate difficult conditions while at the same time improving the substrates or the places that were affected,” she said.

In other words, the project emerged from basic research that in the end became applied research with a concrete use, she added.

“In the tests that we have made on the ground, we determined that there has been an improvement in the amount of organic matter in some substrates that are chemically inert, which don’t intervene in the process of absorption and fixing of nutrients,” Ortiz explained.

In this case, she said, “the improvement goes from zero to five percent, or from zero to one percent, depending on how long the plants have been incorporated in the system.”

“There are improvements in the physical and chemical properties of the places where the plants are installed, and that is thanks to the contribution of the microorganisms and plants that have the capacity to release some compounds that are beneficial to the environment,” she added.

The technology developed by Ortiz also applies to treatment of water, where plants are capable of capturing metals such as copper in the roots.

“The bacteria can reduce by up to 30 percent the sulphate content in a liquid residue that has high concentrations of sulphate,” she said.

So far, the pilot studies carried out by Ortiz and her team have been exclusively applied to tailing substrates. However, in the greenhouse laboratory, experiments have also been conducted in mixes of different kinds of substrates.

“With respect to water, we have worked in clear water, in the tailings dams, but today we are also carrying out experiments on the ground, with leachate of water from garbage dumps,” she said.

The technology developed by Ortiz is already being used in Chile, particularly in some of the processes of the state-run Codelco copper company and National Mining Company.

It is also undergoing validation in Bolivia, Colombia and Canada.

The preliminary results obtained in the pilot studies “are very encouraging,” Sergio Molina, the manager of sustainability and external affairs in Codelco’s Chuquicamata division, told Tierramérica.

“Codelco is especially concerned with permanently incorporating new technologies aimed at minimising the impacts on the environment,” said the official at the Chuquicamata mine, the world’s largest open-pit mine and the country’s biggest producer of copper.

“Based on that we have generated alliances with research institutions such as the University of Santiago to carry out pilot projects along the same lines, with which we have obtained excellent results,” he said.

Lucio Cuenca, an engineer and the director of the Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts, pointed out to Tierramérica that the technology developed by Ortiz addresses only a segment of the extractive process, but does not resolve all of the environmental problems caused by mining.

“What it does is replace some chemical substances like sulphuric acid, but it doesn’t resolve, for example, the high quantities of water extracted in the mining process,” he said.

A real-life example: In just six months the sulphate levels in waste water from mining were reduced 30 percent. Courtesy University of Santiago

Copper mining uses more than 12,000 litres of water per second. International institutions have found a considerable drop in the availability of surface water in this South American country.

Mining is essential to Chile’s economy. In 2013, the industry accounted for just over 11 percent of GDP and generated nearly one million direct or indirect jobs in this country of 17.5 million, while exports totaled 45 billion dollars.

Chile is the world’s leading producer and exporter of copper and also mines molybdenum, and gold, silver and iron on a smaller scale.

The research of Ortiz and her team is also focusing on the desalination of seawater using biofilters, an encouraging alternative for the mining industry.

“In this first stage we are treating water with high levels of chloride which are associated with other elements like ions, also associated with saline water.

“We are working with halophyte plant species, which are very tolerant of high levels of salinity and are very good at capturing and absorbing those salts, which they store in their tissues,” Ortiz explained.

“We have been experimenting and we have quite good results, for applying the technique specifically to leachate from landfills,” she added.

Simultaneously, the research team is developing two projects sponsored by Chile’s state economic development agency, Corfo, involving algae and nanotechnology, to eliminate the particularly saline elements found in seawater or water with high concentration of salt.

“Our aim is for this technology to make it possible to use seawater in mining production,” she said. “We have found that under certain conditions, where saltwater is diluted, we could work with techniques that are much less costly than the ones used today in desalination.”

“These projects are still being developed, with very promising results, and they will be completed next year, which means we will be able to offer new technologies,” Ortiz said.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

The Umgeni River system supplies drinking water to about five million people in the city of Durban, South Africa. But demand for water has outstripped supply for the past seven years. Pictured here is Howick Falls, which lies on the Umgeni River. Credit: Brendon Bosworth/IPS

By Brendon Bosworth
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Jun 3 2014 (IPS)

South Africa’s eThekwini municipality may have come under fire from residents from proposing to purify wastewater so it can be used for drinking, but this municipality’s pragmatic approach to water management has made it one of the most progressive in Africa. 

Neil Macleod, head of water and sanitation at eThekwini municipality, which encompasses the port city of Durban, has reason to be proud of his colleagues.

The eThekwini municipality, which was created through joining smaller municipalities within Durban, the province’s urban centre, has overcome huge challenges following its formation in 2000. “They actually translated the constitutional rights of South Africans to have access to water by definition into reality — that’s very important." -- Joppe Cramwinckel, director of water at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development

At that time, due to Apartheid planning, the city of Durban had first-world quality water services, serving about one million people, MacLeod told IPS. But there were another one million people living in the surrounding dormitory towns with neglected and degraded infrastructure. A further one million people living in the municipality’s rural areas had no access to proper water services, he explained.

South Africa’s 1996 constitution guarantees citizens the right to water, so over the years the municipality has rolled out water and sanitation services, often having to innovate in rural areas and informal settlements.

To provide sanitation services to citizens in informal settlements, the municipality has introduced modified shipping containers that house showers, wash troughs and toilets, Macleod explained.

Poor families also receive free water, an allocation of nine kilo-litres per month.

“We have about 300,000 families that receive free basic water and free basic sanitation — either a container toilet or a urine diverting toilet,” Macleod told IPS.

Last week, the municipality’s water and sanitation unit scooped the Stockholm Industry Water Award, which is given to utilities or companies that have achieved excellence in water management.

Jens Berggren, director of the Stockholm Water Prize and Stockholm Industry Water Award, tells IPS that the “[eThekwini municipality] has been addressing issues in a very pragmatic and understanding way.”

“Not from above, from a technical perspective, but based in reality — these are people’s lives that they have to live.”

Joppe Cramwinckel, director of water at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, one of the award’s partner organisations, told IPS “they’re operating under very difficult circumstances.”

“They have a large customer base to cover, and a variety of customers, and they have developed and experimented with some very novel approaches to deal with the big challenges they face.

“They actually translated the constitutional rights of South Africans to have access to water by definition into reality — that’s very important,” he said.

South Africa’s 232-kilometre Umgeni River is clean upstream but the closer it gets to the sea, the dirtier it becomes. Credit: Brendon Bosworth/IPS

Water shortages on horizon

But Macleod and the water and sanitation department can’t afford to rest on their laurels, however.

As IPS reported in 2013, the municipality faces the prospect of future water shortages, due in part to its reliance on the oversubscribed Umgeni river system.

The recently built Spring Grove dam is now about 80 percent full, said Macleod, and with good rains recently, he is confident there won’t be shortages for the next two years.

“Statistically, we’re still okay until the end of 2015. Thereafter, who knows? If a drought hits and demand continues to grow the way it is then we move back into deficit,” he said. “That doesn’t mean you have rationing immediately, or restrictions, but the chances of it go up and up.”

Various water augmentation options for the region are currently on the table. The municipality has proposed treating and purifying its wastewater so it can be used as drinking water. The purified water would be mixed with conventional drinking water at a ratio of 30 percent re-used water to 70 percent conventional.

There has been some resistance to the idea, including a petition by concerned residents.

Since treated wastewater is discharged into rivers and then winds up in the drinking water supply, people are already drinking recycled sewage, said Macleod. “We’ve been drinking sewage for 40 years, quite happily, as has a lot of this country — Johannesburg included.” 

To buffer the water supply in future, state-owned company Umgeni Water, the largest supplier of bulk potable water in KwaZulu-Natal province, has proposed building two seawater desalination plants.

One of the plants would be on the south coast, adjacent to the Lovu River, and one would be on the north coast near Tongaat.

Each plant would be capable of producing 150 megalitres of water a day, enough to fill 75 Olympic swimming pools.

The proposed desalination plants could offer an alternative to building a costly and large dam on the uMkhomazi river, which would likely be operational by 2030.

Water would be sucked into the plants from one kilometre offshore, in the case of the Lovu plant, and 650 metres offshore in the case of the Tongaat plant, according to information supplied by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, which is doing the environmental assessment for Umgeni Water.

The saltwater would be converted to potable water at the plants by the process of reverse osmosis. This involves pumping saltwater at high-pressure through a semi-permeable membrane that retains the salt, and allows water to pass through.

“It’s feasible but it’s just very energy intensive and much more expensive than the other options,” said Macleod of the desalination plants. “The harsh reality is we don’t have the energy and we can’t afford the costs.”

While authorities are weighing up the pros and cons of the various water augmentation options — recycling sewage water, building desalination plants, or constructing a new dam — time is running short.

“Soon we have to make a decision,” said Macleod. “It has to be this year.”

A forward osmosis desalination plant at Al Khaluf in Oman. Credit: Starsend/cc by 2.0

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 29 2013 (IPS)

The Arab world is widely perceived as blessed with an embarrassment of riches: an abundance of oil (Saudi Arabia), one of the world’s highest per capita incomes (Qatar), and home to the world’s tallest luxury building (United Arab Emirates).

But it lacks one of the most finite resources necessary for human survival: water.Scientists are now warning of "Peak Salt" - the point at which the Gulf becomes so salty that relying on it for fresh water stops being economically feasible.

“The average Arab citizen has eight times less access to renewable water than the average global citizen, and more than two thirds of surface water resources originate from outside the region,” says the U.N.Development Programme (UNDP) in a new study released this week.

Titled “Water Governance in the Arab Region: Managing Scarcity and Securing the Future,” the report warns that water scarcity in the region is fast reaching “alarming levels, with dire consequences to human development”.

The region accounts for five percent of the world’s more than seven billion people, and 10 percent of its area, but accounts for less than one percent of global water resources.

Its share of annual renewable water resources is also less than one percent, and it receives only 2.1 percent of average annual global precipitation.

Over 87 percent of the region’s terrain is desert and 14 of the world’s 20 most water-stressed countries are in this region, the study notes.

Maude Barlow, a former senior U.N. advisor on water and author of “Blue Future, Protecting Water for People and the Planet Forever”, told IPS the Middle East is in “a water crisis.”

Desertification is a sweeping problem in countries such as Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Iran.

The greatest culprits, she pointed out, are unsustainable agricultural practices that guzzle the last of the area’s groundwater.

“Dams and diversions for heavy irrigation are destroying water sources at an alarming rate,” she warned.

A recent satellite study by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) found the region has lost, since 2003 alone, far more groundwater than previously thought – an amount the size of the Dead Sea, said Barlow.

At an international water conference in Abu Dhabi last January, Crown Prince Gen. Sheikh Mohammed bi Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a major oil producer, said: “For us, water is [now] more important than oil.”

Threatened by future scarcities, several Arab countries, including the UAE, have expanded their use of non-conventional water resources including desalination; treated wastewater; rainwater harvesting; cloud seeding; and irrigation drainage water.

Currently, the Arab region leads the world in desalination, with more than half of global capacity.

Desalinated water is expected to expand from 1.8 percent of the region’s water supply to an estimated 8.5 percent by 2025.

Most of the increase is expected to concentrate in high-income, energy-exporting countries, particularly the Gulf countries, because desalination is energy- and capital-intensive, according to the UNDP study.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned that water shortages cause social hardships and impede development.

In an implicit reference to the Middle East, he said, “They create tensions in conflict-prone regions. Too often, where we need water we find guns. There is still enough water for all of us – but only so long as we keep it clean, use it more wisely, and share it fairly.”

The UNDP study  notes that major challenges for the water sector in the region include fragmented institutions with unclear and overlapping responsibilities; inadequate capacities; insufficient funding; centralized decision-making; lack of compliance with regulations and ineffective enforcement; and limited public awareness.

Speaking during the launch of the new report in Bahrain, UNDP assistant administrator and director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States, Sima Bahous, said, “The water crises must be dealt with as a matter of priority and urgency.”

And it deserves increased political attention and commitment even amid the challenging political environment of the region today, Bahous said.

Barlow told IPS the Arab region’s oil wealth has allowed some states to mask their water poverty, giving them the false impression they can buy their way of out of the coming crisis.

“Wealthy Arab states of the Persian Gulf such as the UAE, with the highest per capita water footprint in the world, are over-extracting the waters of the Gulf with massive desalination projects, using their scarce water supplies to build cities and irrigate deserts,” Barlow said.

She also noted that 70 percent of the world’s desalination plants are in this area, and scientists are now warning of “Peak Salt” – the point at which the Gulf becomes so salty that relying on it for fresh water stops being economically feasible.

Moreover, she pointed out, most of the area’s wastewater – including that of the wealthy countries – is not properly treated and in some cases, not treated at all.

“As a result, rivers and the Gulf are heavily polluted. With growing water demands, dwindling supplies and pervasive pollution, the Arab world has a serious water problem,” she added. “While I applaud this [UNDP] report and many of its findings, particularly the warnings about climate change and bad agriculture practices, it does not touch on the more sensitive and political issues of water priority and accessibility enough.”

She said promoting privatisation of water services as being more efficient is not only wrong in and of itself – municipalities all over the world are reclaiming their water services after disastrous experiments with privatisation – but would place the decisions about access even more into the very hands of those who hold the power now and who have enough water for all the golf courses and mansions they can build.

“Only a concerted effort to fiercely protect the region’s water as a public trust and human right together with strict laws to prevent over-extraction and pollution and outright water theft will avert the crisis coming to the Arab world,” Barlow said.

The Umgeni River system supplies drinking water to about five million people in the city of Durban, South Africa. But demand for water has outstripped supply for the past seven years. Pictured here is Howick Falls, which lies on the Umgeni River. Credit: Brendon Bosworth/IPS

By Brendon Bosworth
KWAZULU-NATAL, South Africa, Oct 1 2013 (IPS)

In a few years, residents of the eThekwini municipality in the port city of Durban in South Africa could be drinking water that was once flushed down their toilets, as authorities are planning to recycle some of the municipality’s sewage and purify it to drinking quality standards.

“We’re going through a crucial water shortage, which is increased by the water demand of eThekwini,” Speedy Moodliar, the municipality’s senior manager of planning for water and sanitation, told IPS.

The municipality relies on the Umgeni river system for water. But demand on the system, which supplies drinking water to about five million people and fuels industry in the economic hubs of Durban and Pietermaritzburg, a town 66 kilometres from the coast, has outstripped supply for the past seven years.

To boost supply in future, the South African government has proposed building a dam with a capacity of 250 million cubic metres on the uMkhomazi river, the third-largest river in KwaZulu-Natal, and transferring water to the Umgeni system.

But this scheme will only be operational by 2024 at the earliest, said Moodliar. “Between now and when the uMkhomazi [project] comes online, [wastewater] re-use will be our mitigation measure.”

In dry countries like Israel, Egypt, and Australia treated wastewater is used for industry, landscaping and agriculture. But worldwide few countries put it directly into their drinking water supplies.

Singapore uses purified wastewater to meet 30 percent of its water needs, although just a small percentage goes to drinking water and the majority is used by industry. Citizens of Windhoek, the capital of South Africa’s arid northwestern neighbour Namibia, have been drinking recycled wastewater for over 40 years.

In 2011 the Beaufort West municipality, which serves close to 50,000 people, began treating its sewage for use as drinking water after a vicious drought, making it the first in South Africa to do so. According to a 2012 World Bank report “The future of water in African cities: why waste water?” few cities in Africa have functioning wastewater treatment plants and “only a small proportion of wastewater is collected, and an even smaller fraction is treated.”

eThekwini municipality plans to upgrade two of its existing, and underperforming, wastewater treatment plants – the KwaMashu and Northern treatment works, Moodliar explained.

To remove contaminants and clean the water to drinking quality standard, a three-stage system that treats effluent through ultra-filtration and reverse osmosis, as well as disinfection by ultraviolet light and chlorine would be used. The treated water would also be stored and tested before being released.

The purified water will be mixed with conventional drinking water at a ratio of 30 percent re-used water to 70 percent conventional, said Moodliar. It will feed the municipality’s northern regions, including Umhlanga, Durban North, Reservoir Hills, and KwaMashu.

Re-using wastewater in this way will add 116 megalitres of tap water to the municipality’s supply daily. This is enough to fill just more than 46 Olympic-size swimming pools. It is roughly 13 percent of the municipality’s current daily consumption, and will provide an estimated seven years of water security.

While it will cost more to produce drinking water through wastewater recycling – about 75 cents per kilolitre compared to 50 cents per kilolitre for conventional treatment – the municipality sees it as “the best fit,” said Moodliar.

The municipality has touted the effectiveness and safety of the proposed system, but there has been opposition to the plan, including the submission of a 5,000-signature petition during the public participation process last year.

Citizens have raised concerns about the safety of drinking the re-used water. “Recycling of toilet water to drinking water is a death sentence to the general public because of health implications,” wrote Jennifer Bohus in an email to Golder Associates, the firm that produced the basic assessment report for the wastewater recycling proposal.

The municipality, however, maintains that the water will be fit to drink.

“The technology is advanced enough that the quality of the water being returned is high,” Graham Jewitt, director of the Centre for Water Resources Research at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and chair of water resources management for state-owned Umgeni Water, told IPS. “Many cities all round the world use recycled water.”

“About 14 percent of water use in South Africa is actually water that’s being re-used, most of it indirectly,” Niel van Wyk, chief engineer with the Department of Water Affairs, responsible for strategic water resource planning in KwaZulu-Natal, told IPS.

Citizens opposing the plan also said the municipality, which loses 36 percent of its water annually, largely through leaks and illegal connections, should focus on fixing leaking pipes. Others proposed investment in seawater desalination plants, instead.

The potential for sucking seawater from the Indian Ocean and converting it to freshwater for the region is currently under investigation. But the process of seawater desalination, which involves pumping saltwater at high-pressure through a semi-permeable membrane that retains the salt, and allows water to pass through, remains costly.

Umgeni Water, the state-owned company that is the largest supplier of bulk potable water in KwaZulu-Natal, is doing a feasibility study for two desalination plants: one on the south coast, adjacent to the Lovu River, and one on the north coast near Tongaat, Shami Harichunder, corporate stakeholder manager for Umgeni Water, told IPS.

If built, these plants would be the largest desalination operations in the country, each capable of producing 150 megalitres of water a day. By comparison, the largest desalination plant in South Africa, in Mossel Bay in the Southern Cape, produces a tenth of that amount.

The cost to build one of the proposed plants is as much as 300 million dollars, according to Harichunder. The required technological components, like high-pressure pumps, are expensive, he said.

Desalination plants, however, can be built more quickly than large dams and transfer infrastructure, and also scaled up in future if needed, said the Department of Water Affairs’ van Wyk.

Umgeni Water’s feasibility study is to be completed in December this year. And the feasibility of building desalination plants will be compared to that of the proposal to dam the uMkhomazi river, said Harichunder.

Excerpt:

Esperanza copper mine. Credit: Courtesy of David Pasten

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Aug 8 2013 (IPS)

The arid climate in northern Chile has forced mining companies to seek out new sources of water. The main source is seawater from the Pacific Ocean, whose use is expected to increase significantly in the coming decade despite the high costs of extraction and transport.

The vast northern region of Chile encompasses the Atacama Desert, one of the most arid spots on the planet. It is also home to the world’s biggest copper reserves, the main source of revenue in this South American nation with 6,435 kilometres of Pacific coastline.

“In arid and semi-arid regions, where the availability of water is very limited, the ocean is an alternative for industrial processes and other uses,” Luis Cisternas of the Centre of Scientific and Technological Research for Mining told Tierramérica*.

According to figures from the Chilean Mining Council, 12,615 litres per second of freshwater were used for copper extraction in 2011 – the same year that a World Bank report warned of a considerable decline in the availability of surface water in Chile.

“The use of seawater is not only a solution for the mining companies, but also a way of freeing up freshwater for other uses and allowing the restoration of damaged ecosystems,” said Cisternas, a professor at the University of Antofagasta.

While the mining industry has used seawater in different parts of the world for many years, in Chile there are only a few isolated cases, usually on the part of small or medium-sized companies that deal with minerals whose extraction is not affected by the salinity of the water, he explained.

The first big mining company to use seawater in Chile was Minera Esperanza, a joint venture between Antofagasta Minerals and the Marubeni Corporation.

The company’s copper mine uses untreated seawater, transported through a 145-kilometre-long pipeline, in all of its processes. Seawater currently accounts for 30 percent of all of the water is utilises.

The state-owned National Copper Corporation of Chile (CODELCO) will use seawater for the first time to exploit the sulphide reserves of the Radomiro Tomic mine, in one of the structural projects the company is implementing to extend the useful life of a number of its mines.

“In the case of the Radomiro Tomic (RT) Sulphides project, the use of seawater means that pressure will not be placed on the freshwater resources of the Andes Mountains or other inland surface water reserves, in an area where no new water resources are available,” a CODELCO corporate source told Tierramérica.

The RT Sulphides project represents a new line of copper concentrate production, which involves greater consumption of water per ton of copper produced than the mine’s current exploitation of oxide ore.

“The use of desalinated seawater will make it possible to extend the useful life of the mine without increasing consumption of water from the mountains,” added the source.

For its operations, RT Sulphides will extract seawater and desalinate it through reverse osmosis, a process that uses pressure to force water through a membrane which retains the dissolved solids.

The treated water will be transported to the mine’s facilities, located 3,000 metres above sea level, through a pipeline stretching 160 kilometres. The operation will entail an expenditure of 2.6 dollars per cubic metre, according to CODELCO.

According to studies, the costs associated with a seawater supply system can represent around 20 to 30 percent of the total costs of a project located more than 150 kilometres from the coast and between 3,000 and 4,000 metres above sea level.

“This means it will be necessary to find more efficient ways of supplying seawater to mining companies,” said Cisternas.

The ideal approach, he said, “is to use untreated seawater, because desalination requires energy and causes harmful effects for the environment, but this cannot always be done.”

“It will be necessary to find a way to produce water of different qualities from seawater, since different technologies and minerals require different types of water,” he added.

For CODELCO, desalinated seawater “is not a harmless solution, because it implies greater energy consumption both for its treatment and, above all, for moving it through the pipeline to where the mines are located.”

“It is also not economically viable for projects with narrower profit margins, or for projects that do not have a guaranteed energy supply,” explained the CODELCO source.

Moreover, even if safeguards are adopted, the installation of desalination plants also generates impacts on the coastline and the marine environment.

Samuel Leiva, the campaign coordinator at Greenpeace Chile, warned of the potential long-term environmental impact of the desalination process.

Desalination plants require energy in a region where there is no water, “so the alternative is to implement projects that use fossil fuels and increase atmospheric emissions and cause environmental damage all along the coast” by releasing higher-temperature water back into the ocean, he told Tierramérica.

According to Chilean water utility Aguas Antofagasta, the use of desalination technology dates back to 2003 with the entry into operation of the Antofogasta Desalination Plant, aimed at providing part of the water supply for the population.

There are currently 14 projects of this kind underway in the country, 11 of them connected to the mining sector.

In late July, Minera Escondida announced plans to invest 3.43 billion dollars in the construction of Chile’s biggest desalination plant.

By 2022, an estimated 10 billion dollars will have been invested by the private sector in 16 new seawater treatment plants.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.