Some interesting CA water stats

Courtesy of Jay Lund’s California Water Blog:

“Desalting ocean water is expensive, about $2,000 -$3,000/acre-ft. This cost is too high to be economical for almost any crop in California. This cost is also over $1,000/acre-ft more than other sources available to California’s cities (including wastewater reuse, conservation, and buying water from farmers). Providing only 20% of California’s urban water use by desalinating sea water (1.4 maf/year) would cost households at least $3.5 billion/year (about $300/household per year). The environment would benefit more from other expenditures of such money.”