By Paul Rogers, [email protected], Bay Area News Group

1/30/2018

California water officials have approved $34.4 million in grants to eight desalination projects across the state, including one in Antioch, as part of an effort to boost the water supply in the wake of the state’s historic, five-year drought.

The money comes from Proposition 1, a water bond passed by state voters in November 2014 during the depths of the drought, and it highlights a new trend in purifying salty water for human consumption: only one of the projects is dependent on the ocean.

Instead, six of the winning proposals are for brackish desalination and one is for research at the University of Southern California. In brackish desalination, salty water from a river, bay or underground aquifer is filtered for drinking, rather than taking ocean water, which is often up to three times saltier and more expensive to purify.

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