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Comment by maratc | Hacker News Reader

Israel has successfully reused its wastewater for agriculture. Turns out crops like the recycled wastewater just as much as drinking water.

More than 90% of wastewater is reused in Israel. The second-place holder reuses less than 25%. United States’ rate is less than 10%. [0]

[0] https://www.fluencecorp.com/israel-leads-world-in-water-recy...

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Israel also uses a lot of desalination: “ Israel now gets 55 percent of its domestic water from desalination, and that has helped to turn one of the world’s driest countries into the unlikeliest of water giants.” [1]

While CA is busy stonewalling desalination project that could cover 1/3 of Orange County needs and would reuse old power station infra. And not much else is planned.

Recycled water isn’t readily available in most of the state for irrigation either. Instead we dump it.

[1]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the...

I'm not familiar with the reasons given for stonewalling desalination plants. It seems to me (a layman) that this would be one of the first real avenues for actual progress on the shortage. Why is this being fought so hard?

Opponents of desalination in California most often cite the cost of desalination, and the environmental toll of the energy required to run desalination plants. They also don't like the idea of putting salt back into the ocean.

Generally speaking, California is full of NIMBYs who will reflexively oppose virtually anything new, then work backwards to then find disingenuous justifications for their opposition.

Regarding the Poseidon desalination plant proposal for Huntington Beach:

It's an expensive, risky, corporate handout that ranks nearly dead last across the board in terms of water reliability, value, and financial risk relative to any other proposed water projects(including some other desalination projects) per MWDOC's own report.

https://www.mwdoc.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/2018-FINAL-...

That thing with Newsom at the French Laundry was because it was a birthday party for a Poseidon lobbyist.

A little silly to assert that with respect to Orange County, when it's the home of the largest indirect potable reuse system in the world.

https://www.ocwd.com/gwrs/

Only one out of 19 of the municipal water districts have committed to buying Poseidon water due to the cost and risk.

Works great until your crops get covered in PFAS and you have to shut down the farm.

One problem, at least for Southern California, is that the wastewater is located far away from agricultural areas. Doing this would require another water project on the scale of the project that brings water down here in the first place. Wouldn't be a bad idea tho.

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