2NC CP Solvency

Prefer the CP desalination fails in comparison to more

effective water management strategies plan will get rolled
back and will trade off with existing progress only our
evidence makes the comparative claim
Food and Water Watch 09 (FWW, nonprofit consumer organization that
works to ensure clean water and safe food, 2009, Desalination: An Ocean of
Problems, (http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Desal-Feb2009.pdf)
With all costs considered, ocean desalination is a risky water supply option.
This means that while policymakers are dealing with ocean desalination
proposals, they are distracted from evaluating and implementing better
options. In fact, emphasis on ocean desalination ignores the fact that the
water shortages in our country are not due to a lack of natural water
resources, but rather to shortsighted water policy that focuses on finding
new water resources instead of managing existing resources wisely.
Further, our country loses 6 billion gallons of water per day due to problems such as
leaking pipes. Utilities cannot account for this water because many have not
implemented comprehensive leak monitoring programs.104 Meanwhile, all of the
desalination plants in the United States today operating at their full capacity105
could only produce a quarter of that unaccounted for water.* Numerous academic
studies show that management alternatives and efficiency programs offer
great potential for alleviating water supply problems at a much lower cost
and without the dangers associated with large scale reverse osmosis
plants. According to the National Research Council report on desalination, simply
redistributing water can be much cheaper than desalination and more
efficient.106 The proposed Massachusetts Conservation Standards agree. They
state that finding new water by investing in efficiency and demand
management is almost always more cost-effective than developing a new
source.107 Likewise, a World Bank official told the World Wildlife Fund that
saving water rather than the development of new sources is often the
best next source of water both from an economic and from an
environmental point of view.108 Peter Gleick and Gary Wolff of the Pacific
Institute, a nonprofit research group, refer to such methods as the soft path for
water, which strives to improve the overall productivity of water use rather than
seek endless sources of new supply.109 These techniques include focusing on
water needs rather than supplies, decentralizing water systems, including
community groups in decision making and maintaining ecosystem health.
The Pacific Institute has conducted many studies showing that numerous areas
considering desalination could use conservation programs to provide their
water needs instead. California could save a full third of its current water use, 85
percent of which could be saved at costs lower than new sources of water. Similarly,
a thorough review of Atlantas water conservation plan concluded that the program
left significant untapped potential, while still providing for population growth and
economic development. 111 Meanwhile, the EPA provides many case studies of

successful efficiency programs in many states considering desalination, including

Massachusetts and California.112 In fact, a few policymakers who have
attempted to implement ocean desalination have found that, after all the
expense, other options were more appropriate. For example, in 1991, Santa
Barbara and the Montecito and Goleta Water Districts constructed a $34 million
plant during a drought. However, the drought ended before it came online, and the
city found that conservation measures implemented during the drought
were successful in reducing demand.115 The plant is no longer in
operation.116 In Tampa Bay, where water authorities created the largest ocean
desalination plant in the country to avoid shortages, other options were actually
more effective. While the desalination plant experienced technical and
bureaucratic failures, Tampa Bay Water built a new reservoir and treatment plant,
and implemented conservation programs. In this time, groundwater pumping
decreased from 192 million to 121 million gallons per day, despite increased
population.117 This meant savings of 71 million gallons a day almost
three times as much as the 25 million gallons a day that the desalination
plant was supposed to produce.

Management of existing reserves can solve global shortages

Water World Council No Date (WWC, a network of wide-ranging
competencies distributed the world over, no date, Towards a way to improve the
situation, (http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/library/archives/water-crisis/)
With the current state of affairs, correcting measures still can be taken to
avoid the crisis to be worsening. There is an increasing awareness that our
freshwater resources are limited and need to be protected both in terms of
quantity and quality. This water challenge affects not only the water community, but
also decision-makers and every human being. "Water is everybody's business" was
one of the key messages of the 2nd World Water Forum. Saving water resources
Whatever the use of freshwater (agriculture, industry, domestic use), huge saving
of water and improving of water management is possible. Almost
everywhere, water is wasted, and as long as people are not facing water
scarcity, they believe access to water is an obvious and natural thing. With
urbanization and changes in lifestyle, water consumption is bound to increase.
However, changes in food habits, for example, may reduce the problem, knowing
that growing 1kg of potatoes requires only 100 litres of water, whereas 1 kg of beef
requires 13 000 litres. Improving drinking water supply Water should be recognized
as a great priority. One of the main objectives of the World Water Council is to
increase awareness of the water issue. Decision-makers at all levels must be
implicated. One of the Millenium Development Goals is to halve, by 2015, the
proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and
sanitation. To that aim, several measures should be taken: guarantee the right
to water; decentralise the responsibility for water; develop know-how at the local
level; increase and improve financing; evaluate and monitor water resources.

Existing water sources solve scarcity

Pip, 07 (GreenLeft weekly columnist, 2/23/07, Alternatives to desalinated water,
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/37063)
What are the alternatives to the "last resort" plan the $1.9 billion
desalination plant at Kurnell that NSW Premier Morris Iemma's Labor government
is so keen to get moving on? One obvious one is to recycle storm water and
grey water (from washing machines and bathrooms), something that
would require a significant investment of funds into new infrastructure,
but which would be a more sustainable use of energy and resources than
building the desalination plant. Rainwater harvesting is being heavily promoted
by the Greens in their campaign for the March 24 NSW elections. They argue that
household rainwater tanks would significantly reduce the city's demand on
water supplies. According to NSW Greens MP Ian Cohen, "multiplying the
number of Sydney homes with water tanks effectively moves the
catchment to the coast". The Greens want the rebate on tanks to be increased,
and will push the government to allow homeowners to pay via instalments
added to their quarterly water bill rather than as an upfront cost. While
such reforms head in a good direction, they can only ever be a partial
solution to the problem. This is because many Sydney residencies couldn't
physically accommodate a rainwater tank, and many residents would
simply not be able to afford one, even if subsidised. (How many flat owners
do you know who would be willing to fork out for tanks for their tenants?) The
Greens are also urging Labor to fund local water capture and storage
projects, such as the old Balmain reservoir under Gladstone Park and the collection
of rainwater from the roof of the Leichhardt Oval grandstand. They are calling for
people's welfare and the health of the rivers to "be put ahead of the
profits of agribusiness". These would be important reforms, but any
comprehensive plan would have to address the water use of the biggest water
users in Australia industry and agriculture. Between them, they account
for the use of about 90% of the current water supply of 22,186 billion
litres per year, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The Greens call
for "low net water usage industrial processes", an end to inefficient irrigation
practices, the development of low water-demand agricultural crops to
replace higher demand crops, and for research into planting and watering
techniques that minimise water consumption. But there needs to be a plan to
force industry to recycle its waste water. This would go a long way to reduce
fresh water use. While subsides should be given to working farmers to
recycle and to convert open irrigation channels to below ground irrigation,
there should also be a plan drawn up to phase out high water-using crops
such as rice and cotton. While groundwater can be used, it has to be in a
measured and sustainable way (currently about one third is being pumped to the
surface). New dams also have to be placed in better catchment areas.
Currently only about 2% of water used in Sydney is recycled, compared to
about 20% in Adelaide. The City of Sydney Council estimates that
approximately 70% of all water used in Sydney is piped to sewerage

treatment plants before being channelled out into the ocean after negligible
treatment.

2NC CP Net Benefit

Desalination is a financial pitfall, environmental disaster, and
probably the worst idea of all time threatens health, kills
environment, causes warming, and fails to produce drinkable
water
Food and Water Watch 09 (FWW, nonprofit consumer organization that
works to ensure clean water and safe food, 2009, Desalination: An Ocean of
Problems, (http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Desal-Feb2009.pdf)
While numbers do a good job of illustrating the pure financial cost of desalination,
they do not do justice to the full expense. Additional costs borne by the public
include damage to the environment, danger to the public health and other
external considerations. Not surprisingly, these costs are often glossed over
when proposals are made. According to the National Research Council report,
external costs are rarely evaluated accurately when desalination projects are
proposed and sometimes ignored completely.41 But these costs can be significant.
Ocean desalination contributes to global warming Every step of reverse
osmosis, from the water intake to the high-pressure pumps, transport and waste
disposal systems, requires large amounts of energy. In addition, the saltier the
source water, the more energy required to remove the salt. Seawater is the most
concentrated source water solution there is, which means that ocean desalination is
the most energy intensive desalination process. Based on cost estimates from the
National Research Council report,42 seawater desalination in California takes nine
times as much energy as surface water treatment and 14 times as much energy as
groundwater production.* Meanwhile, very few desalination plants use renewable
energy sources. Surfrider Foundation and San Diego Coastkeeper estimated that a
53 million gallon-per-day desalination plant would cause nearly double the
emissions of treating and reusing the same amount of water.43 Ironically, these
emissions contribute to global climate change, which will only quicken the
droughts and water shortages that desalination is supposed to help us avoid.
Ocean desalination plants can wreak havoc on marine life and commercial
fisheries. Many proposed coastal plants rely on power plants to pull in ocean water.
These power plants use outdated once-through cooling water intake structures
that cool the plants by pulling in large quantities of seawater. Desalination plants
located next to these facilities take a portion of the outgoing water from
these systems for their water supply. The problem here is that these
structures suck in a lot more than seawater they also bring marine life
that dies in the machinery. According to EPA, these intake structures kill at
least 3.4 billion fish and other organisms annually. Larger organisms are
trapped against the intake screens, and smaller ones, such as fish eggs and larvae,
are drawn through the intake screens and destroyed in the cooling system. As a
result, fishermen lose at least 165 million pounds of fish today and 717.1 million
pounds of potential future catch. This is equivalent to a $212.5 million economic
loss to anglers and commercial fishermen.56 Californias power plant intake
structures alone are responsible for the destruction of at least 312.9 million

organisms each year, resulting in the lost catch of at least 28.9 million pounds of
fish and 43.6 million pounds of potential future catch. This amounts to a $13.6
million loss to fishermen.57 Ocean desalination pollutes A large amount of the
water that exits desalination plants is concentrated waste rather than
drinking water. This is because reverse osmosis cannot separate salt from all the
water that enters the plant. Depending on the equipment, reverse osmosis
desalination membranes can reclaim 60 percent to 85 percent of brackish water and
only 35 percent to 60 percent of ocean water.58 For example, the proposed plant in
Carlsbad, California, will desalinate only half of the water that enters the plant The
significant portion of remaining water contains the salts and other dissolved solids
from source water, but at dangerous concentrations two to 10 times higher than the
original water.75 In addition, it contains some or all of the scale inhibitors, acids,
coagulants, ferric chloride, flocculents, cationic polymer, chlorines, bisulfites and
hydrogen peroxides used to treat the feed water and clean the membranes, 76
along with heavy metals from contact with plant machinery.77 There is simply
nowhere to put this liquid waste that does not pose a danger to our water
systems. Most coastal plants dump their waste directly into the ocean,
increasing the salinity and temperature and decreasing the water quality
in the surrounding ecosystem.78 Proponents argue that by dumping the toxic
chemicals into a very large body of water, they will spread out and become less
dangerous. While this may be true of some substances, such as salt, others, such as
heavy metals, remain just as dangerous after dilution.79 Further, when
concentrated waste is dumped directly into the ocean, it may have
localized impacts, such as killing marine organisms or displacing them
from their natural habitat. This raises particular problems when the affected
marine life communities are rare or of special interest.80 The second most common
disposal method for desalinated waste is not appropriate for seawater desalination.
This method involves transporting the wastes to a nearby sewage treatment plant.
However, seawater waste is more concentrated than waste from brackish plants. It
can overload the treatment system and prohibit reuse of the wastewater because
standard treatments cannot remove contaminants from the seawater waste.81
Other less common disposal methods include injecting waste into wells, leaving it in
open ponds to evaporate or spraying it on crops all of which run the risk of having
it leak into clean groundwater. Only one method called Zero Liquid Discharge
does not have a liquid byproduct, but it is so expensive and energy intensive that it
is not a realistic option for any existing plant.82 Ocean Desalination Threatens
Coastal Resources In addition to coastal pollution, desalination can contribute to
unwise coastal over-development. One drawback to this is that industrial plants
along the coast can impair views and interfere with the recreational use of seawater.
Another is that building water-producing facilities in a region that otherwise
wouldnt
have
sufficient
water
encourages
unsound
coastal
management.83 In Huntington Beach, California, for example, a proposed
desalination project failed to identify any current users for its water. Indeed, the
citys Urban Water Management Plan has not identified ocean desalination as a
necessary component of expected growth.84 Ocean Desalination Threatens Public
Health Environmental damage is not the only danger from ocean desalination.
Desalted water also puts the drinking water supply at risk because both

seawater and brackish water can contain chemicals that freshwater does
not. These contaminants include chemicals such as endocrine disruptors,
pharmaceuticals, personal care products and toxins from marine algae.85 Some of
these contaminants may not be adequately removed in the reverse osmosis
process. Boron is a chemical of particular concern because much higher levels are
found in seawater than freshwater. However, membranes can remove only between
50 and 70 percent of this element. The rest is concentrated in the product water,
which enters the drinking water system.86 While it is possible to remove more
boron with a second process, existing plants dont because it is too costly.87 This is
a major problem for the drinking water system because boron is known to cause
reproductive and developmental problems in experimental animals and irritation of
the human digestive tract.88 Moreover, the worlds largest ocean desalination plant
in Ashkelon, Israel found that the boron in the desalted water acted as an herbicide
when applied to crops.89 Current drinking water regulations do not protect the
public from boron. Recently, EPA made the preliminary determination that it would
not regulate the element as a primary contaminant under the Safe Drinking Water
Act because of its low occurrence in traditional sources of drinking water.90
However, the studies that EPA used to make this decision did not take into account
the hike in boron levels that would occur if desalted water was to be added to the
system.

Desalination plants contribute to social injustice this turns

their equality advantage
Food and Water Watch 09 (FWW, nonprofit consumer organization that
works to ensure clean water and safe food, 2009, Desalination: An Ocean of
Problems, (http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Desal-Feb2009.pdf)
Unfortunately, the costs of desalination get passed down to the consumer. For
example, the California American Water Company demanded an up-front rate
increase to construct its proposed plant in Monterey, California, be-fore it ever
produced a drop of water.91 Across the country, in Brockton, Massachusetts,
ratepayers expected to see an estimated 30 percent hike in their water rates once
the city started buying desalinated river water.92 In 2008, the city council voted for
a 60 percent increase in rates before the plant even came online.93 Such price
hikes are not just a problem for individuals, but also for society. Water is a basic
human need that must be available to all citizens, and most communities cannot
afford to pay exorbitant prices for the desalted water. This means that ocean
desalination contributes to social injustice, because the costs of rate hikes fall
disproportionately on low-income communities.94 To add insult to injury, the people
in these communities tend to be the same people who would be most likely to
experience the negative effects from the plants. In California, for example, most
proposed desalination plants would serve affluent communities in Marin County, the
Monterey area, Cambria, southern Orange County and northern San Diego
County.95 However, most of the proposed plants will be built in industrial areas,
which tend to house low- income communities. These populations will experience
the increased air pollution, noise and traffic that come from the plants. Meanwhile,

low-income coastal communities that rely on subsistence fishing may be exposed to

high levels of toxins in fish that are exposed to desalination waste products.97

2NC DA Time Frame

Extend mintpress, 5 years before irreparable
Positive feedbacks accelerate trends towards ecological
extinction- its a question of how fast we can respond
Jackson 10 ( Jeremy B. C. Jackson Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology , McGill
University, Ph.D. in Medical Genetics (2005), University of British Columbia, Marine
ecologist, paleontologist and a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
in La Jolla, Senior Scientist Emeritus at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
in the Republic of Panama. The future of the oceans past Philos Trans R Soc Lond
B Biol Sci. Nov 27, 2010; 365(1558): 37653778. 2010 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
pmc/articles/PMC2982006/)//BLOV
Humans have caused and
continue to hasten the ecological extinction of desirable species and
ocean ecosystems. In their place, we are witnessing population explosions of formerly
uncommon species and novel ecosystems with concomitant losses in biodiversity
and productivity for human use. Many of the newly abundant species, such as jellyfish in the
place of fish and toxic dinoflagellates in the place of formerly dominant phytoplankton, are undesirable
equivalents to rats, cockroaches and pathogens on the land. Moreover, there are
good theoretical reasons and considerable empirical evidence to suggest that, once established, such newly
established communities become stabilized owing to positive feedbacks among
newly dominant organisms and their highly altered environments which raises questions
We can summarize the extent of human impacts on the oceans in stark terms.

about whether unfavourable changes can be undone if we put our minds to it (Scheffer et al. 2001; Knowlton 2004; Jackson 2008;

(a) Projected trends Several trends for life in the oceans are clearly
apparent if we do not act quickly to reduce overfishing, pollution and the rise of CO2. Most commercial wild
fisheries will be lost and many prized species such as bluefin tuna may even go extinct. Surface waters will become
increasingly warmer and more acidic, resulting in the further decline and possible extinction
of most reef corals and other calcifying organisms. Warmer and lighter surface
waters will strongly inhibit vertical mixing of nutrients to the surface and oxygen to deeper
waters, resulting in the collapse in productivity in pelagic ecosystems and
Hughes et al. 2010).

widespread hypoxia or anoxia below the increasingly stable thermocline, as occurred decades ago in the Black Sea (Rabalais et al.

Widening dead zones around continents and other forms of pollution will make
coastal waters too toxic for aquaculture and outbreaks of diseases will increase.
Accelerated melting of polar ice sheets will release vast amounts of fresh water that will
float along the ocean surface, further inhibiting vertical mixing and raising sea level. Sea
level will rise and the intensity of storms will increase, threatening human populations and coastal ecosystems. Global
biogeochemical cycles will be altered in increasingly uncertain ways . Predictions
2002).

are always risky, but it is difficult to imagine how all of these projected changes would not occur barring decisive action to reverse

All of the trends are already in progress and

continue to be measured by routine oceanographic observations . The oceans are becoming
the trends or some global catastrophe to humanity.

measurably warmer and more acidic and polar sea ice is measurably melting faster than expected from global climate models
(Rahmstorf et al. 2007; Stroeve et al. 2007). Eutrophication, hypoxia and the numbers of dead zones are measurably increasing in
quantity and size (Rabalais et al. 2002, 2007; Diaz & Rosenberg 2008). Vertical mixing of the oceans is measurably decreasing with
measurably great decreases in pelagic productivity (Roemmich & McGowan 1995; Polovina et al. 2008). More and more fisheries
have measurably collapsed with the concomitant ecological extinction of large fishery species (Jackson et al. 2001; Pauly et al. 2002;

the
question is not whether these trends will happen, but how fast they will happen,
and what will be the consequences for the oceans and humanity. All of the predicted changes in
Jackson 2006, 2008; NRC 2006). Sea level is measurably rising at increasing rates and hurricanes are intensifying. Thus,

oceanographic conditions exceed those associated with the ecological reorganization and extinctions of Caribbean species following

the uplift of the Isthmus of Panama, and the rates and amounts of warming approach those associated with the PETM and other

Previous
episodes of deep-sea anoxia in the geological past were associated with mass
extinctions of deep-sea marine species and reef corals (Thomas & Shackleton 1996; Thomas 2007;
Scheiber & Speijer 2008; Zachos et al. 2008), and the global deep-sea anoxia at the end of the Permian was associated with the
mass extinction of 95 per cent of the animal species on the planet (Erwin 2006;
Knoll et al. 2007). Moreover, none of these past biological apocalypses was associated with a
single dominant species that increasingly dominates the renewable resources,
nutrient cycling and biogeochemical cycles of the planet (Vitousek et al. 1997; Wackernagel et al.
2002; Howarth et al. 2004). In light of everything we know about upheavals in the geological
past, another great mass extinction appears inevitable.
early Cenozoic and Mesozoic hyperthermal events (Wilson & Norris 2001; Zachos et al. 2008; Kump et al. 2009).

2NC Oncase
Ocean desal plants suck in billions of fish and organisms
Food & Water Watch 9 nonprofit consumer organization that works
to ensure clean water and safe food, Desalination: An Ocean of
Problems, February,
http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Desal-Feb2009.pdf
Ocean desalination plants can wreak havoc on marine life and commercial fisheries.
Many proposed coastal plants rely on power plants to pull in ocean water. These
power plants use outdated once-through cooling water intake structures that cool
the plants by pulling in large quanti-ties of seawater. Desalination plants located
next to these facilities take a portion of the outgoing water from these systems for
their water supply. The problem here is that these structures suck in a lot more than
seawater they also bring marine life that dies in the machinery. According to EPA,
these intake structures kill at least 3.4 billion fish and other organisms annually.
Larger organisms are trapped against the intake screens, and smaller ones, such as
fish eggs and larvae, are drawn through the intake screens and destroyed in the
cooling sys-tem.

Desalinization disrupts ocean environment

Block ND
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5720 Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute who covers everything environmental for Eye on Earth and
previously led outreach efforts for the Verified Carbon Standard Association, a greenhouse gas accounting program used by projects around the world to
verify and issue carbon credits in voluntary markets. He managed the organization's online presence, implementation of an enterprise-wide CRM system,
production of marketing and press outreach materials, enforcement of trademark rights, coordination of stakeholder inquiry responses, and approval of
select greenhouse gas accounting methodologies. Desalination Raises Environmental, Cost Concerns (Merkley)

As global freshwater reserves dry up, desalination plants are receiving greater attention as an option for providing
both drinking water supplies and agricultural irrigation. But a new study released on Thursday raises several
concerns about the environmental impact and cost effectiveness of the widely touted technology to convert

Desalination plants pose a risk to marine species when the water

is collected from ocean areas, as well as when the salty discharge is deposited into
coastal estuaries, according to the report, which was released by the U.S. National Research Council (NRC).
Also, current desalination technology often does not adequately remove the chemical
element boron, which occurs naturally in seawater and is considered toxic to humans, the report
seawater to fresh water.

said.

2NC Impact Calc

The impacts are immediate and cause long-term structural
damage to marine ecosystems
Cooley, Ajami and Heberger 13
[Heather*, Newsha** and Matthew***, *co-director of the Pacific Institute Water
Program, conducts and oversees research on connections between water and
energy, sustainable water use and management and the hydrologic impacts of
climate change, recipient of the EPAs award for Oustanding Achievement, serves on
the Board of Directors of the California Urban Water Conservation Council, serves on
the California Commercial, Industrial and Institutional Task Force, **senior research
affiliate with the Pacific Institute Water Program, hydrologist specializing in
sustainable water resource management, hydrological modeling, flood and water
supply forecasting and advancing uncertainty assessment techniques, served as
Science and Technology fellow at the California State Senate Committee on Natural
Resources and Water, recipient of the 2005 NSF award for AMS Science and Policy
Colloquium and ICSC-Wolrd Laboratory Hydrologic Science and Water Resources
Fellowship from 2000 to 2003, ***research associate with the Pacific Institute Water
Program, former consulting engineer on water policy and hygiene and sanitation
educator in West Africa, KEY ISSUES IN SEAWATER DESALINATION IN CALIFORNIA,
Pacific Institute, December 2013, http://pacinst.org/wpcontent/uploads/sites/21/2013/12/desal-marine-imapcts-full-report.pdf // SZ]
Safe disposal of the concentrated brine produced by desalination plants presents a
major environmental challenge. All large coastal seawater desalination plants
discharge brine into oceans and estuaries . Brine, by definition, has a high salt concentration, and as
a result, it is denser than the waters into which it is discharged. Once discharged, brine tends to sink
and slowly spread along the ocean floor. Mixing along the ocean floor is usually much slower than at the
surface, thus inhibiting dilution and resulting in elevated salt concentrations near the outfall.
Diffusers can be placed on the discharge pipe to promote mixing. Brine can also be diluted with effluent from a
wastewater treatment plant or with cooling water from a power plant or other industrial user, although these
approaches have their own drawbacks. The impacts of brine on the marine environment are largely unknown. The
majority of studies available focus on a limited number of species over short time periods and lack baseline data

The laboratory and field studies that have

indicate the potential for acute and chronic toxicity and
changes to the community structures in marine environments. The ecological impacts of
which would allow a comparison to pre-operation conditions.
been conducted to date, however,

brine discharge, however, vary widely and are a function of several factors, including the characteristics of the
brine, the discharge method, the rate of dilution and dispersal, and the sensitivity of organisms