{"id":14688,"date":"2012-07-09T15:47:49","date_gmt":"2012-07-09T20:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=14688"},"modified":"2012-07-09T16:24:05","modified_gmt":"2012-07-09T21:24:05","slug":"unsalting-the-earth-jerry-pattersons-desalination-ambitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2012\/07\/09\/unsalting-the-earth-jerry-pattersons-desalination-ambitions\/","title":{"rendered":"Un-salting the Earth: Jerry Patterson’s Desalination Ambitions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo courtesy of Texas General Land Office<\/p>

Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson wants to build desalination plants on state land.<\/p><\/div>\n

Texas is sitting on a massive amount of \u201cbrackish\u201d water. Too salty to drink, but far less salty than ocean water. A lot of it is just sitting there, below our freshwater aquifers. And there\u2019s enough of it to satisfy the current Texas population for a hundred and fifty years. But how do we get to it, and how much will it cost to do so?<\/p>\n

That question is now on the mind of the Texas General Land Office. Today Commissioner Jerry Patterson proposed building some smaller desalination projects<\/a> in Central Texas to help meet water demand in the region.<\/p>\n

“Everyone says the state’s population is going to double by 2060,” Patterson tells StateImpact Texas. “And I guess you could say there’s enough water. But it’s not in the right place.”<\/p>\n

Patterson, who’s running for\u00a0Lieutenant\u00a0Governor in 2014<\/a>,\u00a0is looking at several sites that belong to the\u00a0commission\u2019s Permanent School Fund, all of them along the I-35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio. “Anything we do to produce water for Central Texas reduces the impact on the Highland Lakes<\/a>,” Patterson says. “That’s not only good for the folks that live around the Highland Lakes, it’s also good for those downstream consumers.” Patterson says less water taken out of the lakes means more for rice farmers, bays and estuaries, utilities and the petro-chemical industry.<\/p>\n

But isn\u2019t desalination expensive and energy-intensive?<\/p>\n

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Graphic by General Land Office<\/p>

The desalination project would use brackish water deep underground and make it fresh.<\/p><\/div>\n

“Yeah, it is,” says Patterson. “It\u2019s about twice as expensive as some of our more traditional ways to acquire water.\u201d And while\u00a0desalination\u00a0and reverse osmosis\u00a0filtration\u00a0require a lot of power, he says that they’re looking at the potential to power the plants, perhaps just in part, using renewable energy like solar and wind.<\/p>\n

But Patterson thinks the investment would pay off, whether or not the money for the plants comes from the General Land Office or private investors.\u00a0\u201cThe market is in play here,” he says. “We have the shortage of a commodity. We have increasing demand. Therefore the price of that commodity \u2013 what was thought to be expensive in the past, may look like a bargain in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

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