Southern California’s beaches are a miracle. More than just landscapes, they’re cultural treasures. In movies, ads, and music, the coastline often feels like its own character. To many of us who live here, the coastline is not just a place to swim or sunbathe but a symbol of freedom, fun, and the state’s enduring connection to the Pacific Ocean.
And let’s face it, the beach would not be the beach without sand.
Pick up some California wildlife gifts at our Etsy store. Seriously, they’re cool.
I didn’t realize how essential sand is until I read Vince Beiser’s The World in a Grain. It quickly became one of my favorite nonfiction books in recent years … and I read a lot of nonfiction. Think about it: without sand, there would be no roads, no skyscrapers, no glass. That means no windows, no windshields, no microscopes or telescopes. No fiber-optic cables. No computer chips, since silicon, the foundation of modern technology, is essentially refined sand. The list is endless. I get that it’s not all beach sand per se, but that’s a quibble.
However, that’s not what I want to focus on here. What struck me, as I was walking along the beach the other day, was a simpler question: where does all the sand on Southern California’s beaches actually come from?
San Gabriel Mountains (Photo: Erik Olsen)
Well, put yourself for a moment on the beach in Southern California. No shoes. It turns out most of the grains between your toes actually began their journey high in the mountains above LA, on craggy slopes far from the shore. Mostly, we are talking about the San Gabriel Mountains and other peaks in the Transverse Ranges that run east-west across Southern California. The rugged, crumbling peaks are made of granite and other crystalline rocks rich in quartz, feldspar, and mica. Through the relentless process of erosion, wind and rain loosen these minerals, which tumble into streams and rivers, such as the San Gabriel and Santa Ana and are carried out to sea. During storms, torrents of sediment rush downhill toward the coast, and that’s where ocean currents take over.
This region where wave action dominates is called the littoral zone (no, not the literal zone), and it is where sand gets pushed around through a process known as longshore drift. Waves arriving at an angle push sediment along the shore, creating a conveyor belt that can carry grains for miles.
Lifeguard tower in Southern California (Photo: Erik Olsen)
In Southern California, this natural process has been reshaping the shoreline for thousands of years, constantly adding sand to some beaches while stripping it away from others. A lot has changed recently though (I mean “recent” in geologic terms). Humans, as we often do, have f*cked things up a bit, changing the nature of our beaches since the late 1800s. The piece I wrote recently about the Wedge in Newport is a good example. Breakwaters and other “shoreline armoring” built along our coast have altered the movement of sand, sending much of it into deep water where it is lost.
Dams have also cut off a huge portion of sediment that would once have reached the coast, reducing Southern California’s natural sand supply by nearly half. To make up the difference, beach managers spend millions each year dredging sand from offshore deposits or harbor entrances and pumping it onto the shore. We’ve been doing this for nearly a century. Between 1930 and 1993, more than 130 million cubic yards of sand were placed on Southern California beaches, creating wide stretches like Santa Monica and the Silver Strand that are much larger today than they would have been naturally. And if you think this is a temporary thing, forget it. With climate change driving stronger storms and rising seas, the need to keep replenishing sand is only going to grow.
Big Tujunga Dam in Southern California (Photo: Erik Olsen)
For decades, geologists believed that rivers supplied as much as 90 percent of California’s beach sand. That view has shifted. Research from Scripps Institution of Oceanography shows that coastal cliffs also play a huge role on some beaches. Along the stretch from Dana Point to La Jolla, cliff erosion has been shown to contribute about half of the beach-sized sediment, and in some places up to 68 percent. This is especially true in dry years, when rivers deliver less. Still, on a statewide scale, rivers remain the main suppliers of sand. Studies from the California Coastal Sediment Management Workgroup show that, under present conditions, rivers account for about 90 percent of sand reaching Southern California beaches, with bluff erosion contributing roughly 10 percent.
Littoral cells in Southern California (Source: California Coastal Commission)
The sand’s story does not end at the shoreline. California’s coast is divided into littoral cells, essentially self-contained systems with their own sand sources, transport pathways, and sinks. Most sand in Southern California moves north to south, carried by waves arriving from the northwest. Eventually, much of it is lost into submarine canyons like Mugu, Newport, and Redondo, where it drops into deep water and exits the system.
Beach sand can also come from more subtle sources. Shell fragments from marine life, volcanic ash from distant eruptions, and even windblown desert dust can mix into the sediment. Perhaps not surprisingly, in recent decades, scientists have discovered another ingredient in our sand: plastic. Studies at Point Reyes and Golden Gate National Parks found an average of about 140 microplastic particles per kilogram of beach sand, which works out to roughly 50 pieces in a single measuring cup. Even beaches farther south, like Cabrillo, average nearly 40 pieces per kilogram.
Staff collect sand samples at Cabrillo National Monument. Testing revealed that Cabrillo sand had the lowest average concentration of microplastics of all of the West Coast parks studied. Point Reyes and Golden Gate had the highest. (Photo: National Park Service)
Offshore sediment cores show that microplastic deposition has doubled every 15 years since the 1940s, with most fragments being synthetic fibers shed from clothing. These findings show that California’s sand is no longer entirely natural; it now carries the pernicious imprint of modern consumer life, with fragments of plastic woven into its mix of minerals and shells. Interestingly, the concentration of microplastics off the coast of California, where researchers carried out their studies, appears to be lower than in many other parts of the world. “If they were doing the same thing in the Yellow Sea in China, right outside some of the big rivers like the Yangtze and Yellow River, the concentrations would probably be huge and cause adverse effects,” University of Michigan eco-toxicologist Allen Burton told Wired Magazine.
But look, the chance to walk or run on the beach is one of the real gifts of living in California. The sand that sticks to your towel, finds its way into your shoes, or gets stuck into your hair has traveled a long, remarkable journey to reach the shore. It’s true that some of it now includes plastic, which is unfortunate, but that doesn’t diminish the joy of being at the beach. In a world where so much feels fast, fleeting, and digital, there’s something really cool and satisfying about putting your toes in the sand, a remarkable substance that is totally crucial to modern civilization, yet which is also timeless and ancient and part of the natural world around us.
The ocean covers about 70 percent of Earth’s surface and holds 96 percent of its water. But because it’s saturated with salt, it isn’t drinkable. Sailors have known this for centuries, and that’s a profound challenge for California, with more than 800 miles of coastline and a history of drought that has persisted for over two decades despite occasional relief from heavy rains.
Remember those rains?
The atmospheric rivers of 2024 in California briefly filled reservoirs and restored snowpack, but drought has already returned to parts of the state, underscoring the state’s precarious water future and fueling renewed debate over desalination as a long-term water solution.
The Los Angeles Rifer flows high following atmospheric river storms in 2024 (Photo: Erik Olsen)
Several regions facing severe drought have turned to desalination with notable success. Israel now supplies up to 40 percent of its domestic water through desalination and is widely recognized as a global leader in technological innovation. In the Gulf, countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar depend heavily on desalinated water, with the region producing roughly 40 percent of the world’s supply of desal. Saudi Arabia’s Ras Al-Khair plant, for example, is the largest hybrid desalination facility in the world. Australia has also invested heavily, with Adelaide’s desalination plant able to provide up to half of the city’s water and ramping up to full capacity during the 2024–2025 drought.
By contrast, California, the world’s fourth-largest economy, continues to struggle with recurring droughts despite some relief from those recent rains.
Many new projects are underway to recycle and store water, but desalination remains an important option that could play a larger role in how California manages supplies for its residents and farmers. For now, the state has only a handful of desalination plants, with just two operating at significant scale, leaving California far behind global leaders.
The Piggyback Yard rail site in Los Angeles, long used for freight operations, is now at the center of a proposal to transform the space into a massive stormwater capture and storage project. (Photo: Erik Olsen)
California will keep bouncing between wet and dry years, and that reality has pushed seawater and brackish-water desalination from a thought experiment into a real, if specialized, tool. It’s a big deal: The promise is reliable “drought-proof” supply. The tradeoffs are clear: high costs, heavy energy demands, and the challenge of careful siting. California has pushed the frontier of desalination technology, but it remains far from being an integral or dependable part of the state’s supply. Many observers doubt it ever will be.
But let’s take a look at where we are.
Desalination is already part of daily life in a few places. The 50-million-gallon-per-day Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant supplies roughly a tenth of the San Diego region’s potable demand, making it the largest seawater desalination facility in the United States. Water from Carlsbad is reliable during drought, but that reliability carries a premium: Recent public figures put its delivered cost in the low-to-mid $3,000s per acre-foot, higher than most imported supplies when those are plentiful. Even advocates frame the key tradeoff as price and energy intensity in exchange for certainty.
Rules matter as much as membranes. Since 2015, California has required new ocean desal plants to use the best available site, design, technology, and mitigation measures to minimize marine life mortality at intakes and to limit brine impacts at outfalls. These standards make facilities gentler on the ocean and they shape where plants can be built and what they cost. But it’s complicated.
The permitting bar is real, some say too onerous. In May 2022 the California Coastal Commission unanimously denied the proposed Huntington Beach seawater desalination plant after staff raised concerns about high costs, harm to marine life from an open-ocean intake, exposure to sea-level rise, and a lack of demonstrated local demand. That decision did not end desalination, but it clarified where and how it can pencil out. The same year, the Commission unanimously approved the smaller Doheny project in Dana Point because it uses subsurface intake wells and showed stronger local need and siting.
The Seawater Desalination Test Facility in Port Hueneme, Ventura. (Photo: John Chacon / California Department of Water Resources)
Doheny is frequently described as a late-2020s project, but its official timeline has slipped as partners and financing have taken longer to come together. That’s so California. The South Coast Water District has projected completion and operations in 2029, with key procurement milestones running through 2025. Given California’s regulatory climate, I’d say these dates are optimistic rather than bankable.
Elsewhere on the coast, the California American Water project for the Monterey Peninsula cleared a major hurdle in November 2022. Designed to add about 4.8 million gallons per day and pair with recycled water to replace over-pumping groundwater (a huge issue), it underscored desal’s role where other options are limited. In August 2025, the CPUC projected a 2050 supply deficit of 815 million gallons per year and cleared the way for construction to begin by year’s end. So, yeah. We’ll see.
Project site map of the Doheny Ocean Desalination Project (South Coast Water District)
Desalination is not only ocean-sourced. Several California systems quietly run on brackish water, which is less salty and cheaper to treat than seawater. Antioch’s brackish plant on the San Joaquin River is designed for about 6 million gallons per day to buffer the city against salinity spikes during drought. It was slated to come online this year, but operations have yet to begin (at least, I could not find any new info to this effect). Up the coast, Fort Bragg installed a small reverse-osmosis system in 2021 to deal with high-tide salt intrusion in the Noyo River during critically low flows, and it has piloted wave-powered desal buoys for emergency resilience.
Santa Barbara’s Charles E. Meyer plant was reactivated in 2017 after years in standby and now functions as a reliability supply the city can dial into. In 2024 it contributed a meaningful slice of deliveries.
These are targeted, local solutions, not silver bullets, and that is the point.
Energy remains the biggest driver of desalination costs. Even with modern technology cutting usage to 2.5 to 4 kilowatt-hours per cubic meter, desal still requires far more power and therefore higher expense than water recycling or imported supplies. Beyond cost, desalination also brings added challenges, from greenhouse gas emissions tied to electricity use to the disposal of concentrated brine back into the ocean.
Santa Barbara’s Charles E. Meyer plant (City of Santa Barbara)
But the reality today is that the biggest additions to statewide water supply are coming from large-scale potable reuse, aka recycling. San Diego’s Pure Water program begins adding purified water to the drinking system in 2026 and scales toward about 83 million gallons per day by 2035. Metropolitan Water District’s Pure Water Southern California is planning up to roughly 150 million gallons per day at full build-out. These projects do not replace desal everywhere, but they change the calculus in big metro areas by creating local, drought-resilient supplies with generally lower energy and environmental footprints.
With most desalination projects carrying steep costs, success may hinge on innovation. Several new approaches now being tested in California waters are showing early promise. In 2025, OceanWell began testing underwater desalination pods in a reservoir near Malibu. These cylindrical units are designed to test how membranes perform when microorganisms are present in the water, since bacteria and algae can grow on the surfaces and form biofilms that clog the system.
A drawing of OceanWell’s underwater desalination pod system (OceanWell)
The longer-term vision is “water farms” made up of subsea pods tethered 1,300 feet down, where natural hydrostatic pressure does much of the work. Each pod could produce up to a million gallons of fresh water per day with roughly 40 percent less energy than a conventional onshore plant. Because the brine would be released gradually at depth, the approach could also reduce ecological impacts. OceanWell has said its first commercial-scale project, called Water Farm 1, could be operating by 2030 if tests and permitting go as planned. It’s interesting, for sure, but in the end, we’re talking long-shot here.
Big picture, desalination works best as a specialty tool—it’s not the answer everywhere, but it can be a game-changer in the right spots. Think coastal towns with little groundwater, islands or peninsulas with fragile aquifers, or inland areas that get hit with salty water now and then. California’s rules now push projects toward gentler ocean intakes and better brine disposal, but the real strategy is a mix: conservation, stormwater capture, groundwater banking, recycled water, and just the right amount of desal. Those huge atmospheric river storms are not predictable. Who knows if we’ll get another next year or the year after that? The next drought will come, and the communities that invested in a full toolkit will be the ones that hold up the best.
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It’s time for California to put people back in the deep. A human-occupied submersible belongs in California waters, and we’ve waited long enough.
For decades, the state had a strong human-occupied submersible presence, from Navy test craft in San Diego to long-serving civilian science HOVs like the Delta. Those vehicles have been retired or relocated, leaving the West Coast without a single home-based, active human-occupied research submersible (I am not counting OceanGate’s Titan sub for numerous reasons, like the fact it was based in Seattle, but foremost is it was not “classed,” nor was it created for scientific use). Restoring that capability would not only honor California’s legacy of ocean exploration but also put the state back at the forefront of direct human observation in the deep sea. The time has come.
Side note: I’ve had the rare privilege of diving beneath the waves in a submersible three times in three different subs, including one descent to more than 2,000 feet with scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Without exaggeration, it stands among the greatest experiences of my life.
The United States once had a small fleet of working research HOVs. Today it has essentially one deep-diving scientific HOV in regular service: Alvin, operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) for the National Deep Submergence Facility. Alvin is magnificent, now upgraded to reach 6,500 meters, but it is based on the Atlantic (in Massachusetts) and scheduled years in advance at immense cost.
The human-occupied submersible Alvin surfaces during the 2004 “Mountains in the Sea” Expedition, returning from a dive to explore deep seamount habitats teeming with corals, sponges, and other rarely seen marine life. (Photo: NOAA, Public Domain)
It helps to remember how we got here. The Navy placed Alvin in service in 1964, a Cold War investment that later became a pillar of basic research, investigating hydrothermal vents, shipwrecks and underwater volcanoes, among many, many other accomplishments. Over six decades of safe operations, Alvin has logged thousands of dives and undergone multiple retrofits, each expanding its depth range. Now rated to 6,500 meters, it can reach 98 percent of the ocean floor. WHOI’s partnership model with the Navy and universities shows exactly how public investment and science can reinforce each other. But Alvin is based on the East Coast: all that capability, history, and expertise is thousands of miles away. California needs its own Alvin. Or something even better…and perhaps cheaper. Though by cheaper I do not mean less safe.
For a time, California actually had multiple HOVs. The Navy fielded sister craft to Alvin, including Turtle and Sea Cliff. Both Turtle and Sea Cliff spent their careers with Submarine Development Group ONE in San Diego. Turtle was retired in the late 1990s, and Sea Cliff, launched in 1968 and later upgraded for greater depths, also left service by the end of that decade, ending the Navy’s home-ported HOV presence on the West Coast.
On the Atlantic side, Harbor Branch’s two Johnson Sea Link HOVs supported science and search-and-recovery work for decades before the program ended in 2011 due to funding constraints and shifting research priorities. I’ve interviewed renowned marine biologist Edith Widder several times, and she often speaks about how pivotal her dives in the Johnson Sea Link submersibles were to her career studying animal bioluminescence.
“Submersibles are essential for exploring the planet’s largest and least understood habitat, ” Widder told me. “A human-occupied, untethered submersible offers an unmatched window into ocean life, far surpassing what remotely operated vehicles can provide. ROVs, with their noisy thrusters and blazing lights, often scare away marine animals, and even the most advanced cameras still can’t match the sensitivity of the fully dark-adapted human eye for observing bioluminescence.”
In the central Pacific, the University of Hawaiʻi’s HURL operated Pisces IV and V for much of the 2000s and 2010s, then suspended operations amid funding and ship transitions. Through attrition and budget choices, the working U.S. fleet shrank from a handful to essentially one deep-diving research HOV today.
Manned submersibles are costly to build and operate, and they demand specialized crews, maintenance, and support ships or platforms. It’s easy to list reasons why California shouldn’t invest in a new generation of human-occupied subs. But that mindset has kept us out of the deep for far too long. It’s time to turn the conversation around and recognize why having one here would be a transformative asset for science, education, and exploration.
The Seacliff and Turtle submersibles (Photo: U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command photo. Public Domain)
California’s own human-occupied sub legacy is short, but notable. In addition to the Navy submersibles noted above, the Delta submersible, a compact, ABS-class HOV rated to about 1,200 feet, operated from Ventura and later Moss Landing, supporting dozens of fishery and habitat studies from the Southern California Bight to central California. Built by Delta Oceanographics in Torrance, Delta dives in the mid-1990s produced baseline data that still underpin rockfish management, MPA assessments, and predictive habitat maps. The sub’s ability to place scientists directly on the seafloor allowed for nuanced observations of species behavior, habitat complexity, and human impacts that remote tools often miss. Many of these datasets remain among the most detailed visual records of California’s deeper reef ecosystems.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) operates a world-class research fleet with a robust remotely operated vehicle (ROV) program, but no human-occupied vehicle—a strategic decision the institute made years ago in favor of robotics over direct human dives. (Photo: Erik Olsen)
In the late 1990s, the program shifted north to Moss Landing, where it was operated in partnership with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and other institutions. At the time, MBARI was still in the early years of exploring human-occupied vehicles, like Bruce Robison’s experience piloting the Deep Rover HOV in Monterey Canyon in 1985. To many at MBARI, human occupancy in submersibles began to seem more like a luxury than a necessity. If the goal was to maximize scientific output and engineering innovation, remotely operated vehicles offered longer bottom times, greater payload capacity, and fewer safety constraints. That realization drove MBARI to invest heavily in ROV technology, setting the stage for a long-term move away from human-occupied systems.
Which leads us to the present moment: California’s spectacular coast faces mounting environmental threats, just as public interest in ocean science wanes. And yet, we have no human-occupied research submersible, no way for scientists or the public to directly experience the deep ocean that shapes our state’s future.
The Delta submersible, once a workhorse of California’s deep-sea research with over 5,800 dives, operated from Ventura and later Moss Landing between the 1980s and 2000s. Sold in 2011 in a non-functional state, it remains out of service—symbolizing the end of the state’s home-ported human-occupied submersible era.
Look, robots are incredible. MBARI’s ROVs and AUVs set global standards, and they should continue to be funded and expanded. But if you talk to veteran deep-sea biologists and geologists, they will tell you that being inside the environment changes the science.
Dr. Adam Soule, chief scientist for Deep Submergence at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) agrees, “Having a human presence in the deep sea is irreplaceable. The ability for humans to quickly and efficiently process the inherently 3D world around them allows for really efficient operations and excellent sampling potential. Besides, there is no better experience for inspiring young scientists and for ensuring that any scientist can get the most out of unmanned systems than immersing themselves in the environment.”
Some of our most prominent voices are also speaking out about the need to explore the ocean. I recently produced an hour-long episode of the PBS science program NOVA and one episode was about the new generation of submersibles being built right now by companies like Florida-based Triton Submarines. I had the privilege of talking to filmmaker and ocean explorer James Cameron, who was adamant that human participation in ocean exploration is critical to sustaining public interest and political will.
“The more you understand the ocean, the more you love the ocean, the more you’re fascinated by it, and the more you’ll fight to protect it,” Cameron told me.
The author with James Cameron in front of his submersible the Deepsea Challenger. (Erik Olsen)
Human eyes and brains pick up weak bioluminescence out of the corner of vision, pivot to follow a squid that just appeared at the edge of a light cone, or decide in the moment to pause and watch a behavior a diving team has never seen before. NOAA’s own materials explain the basic value of HOVs this way: you put scientists directly into the natural deep-ocean environment, which can improve environmental evaluation and sensory surveillance. Presence is a measurement instrument.
California is exactly where that presence would pay off. Think about Davidson Seamount, an underwater mountain larger than many national parks, added to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary because of its ancient coral gardens and extraordinary biodiversity. We know this place mostly through ROVs, and we should keep using them, but a California HOV could carry sanctuary scientists, MBARI biologists, and students from Hopkins Marine Station or Scripps into those coral forests to make fine-scale observations, sample with delicacy, and come home with stories that move the public. Put a student in that viewport and you create a career. Put a donor there and you create a program.
A time-lapse camera designed by MBARI engineers allowed researchers to observe activity at the Octopus Garden between research expeditions. (Photo: MBARI)
Cold seeps and methane ecology are another natural fit. Off Southern California and along the borderlands there are active methane seep fields with complex microbial and animal communities. Recent work near seeps has even turned up newly described sea spiders associated with methane-oxidizing bacteria, a striking reminder that the deep Pacific still surprises us. An HOV complements ROV sampling by letting observers linger, follow odor plumes by sight and instrument, and make rapid, in-situ decisions about fragile communities that are easy to miss on video. That kind of fine-grained exploration connects directly to California’s climate priorities, since methane processes in the ocean intersect with carbon budgets.
There are practical use cases all over the coast. A California HOV could support geohazard work on active faults and slope failures that threaten seafloor cables and coastal infrastructure. It could conduct pre- and post-event surveys at oil-and-gas seep sites in the Santa Barbara Channel to ground-truth airborne methane measurements. It could document deep-water MPA effectiveness where visual census by divers is impossible. It could make repeated visits to whale falls, oxygen minimum zone interfaces, or sponge grounds to study change across seasons.
An autonomous underwater craft used to map DDT barrels on the seafloor off California. (Photo: Scripps Institution of Oceanography at U.C. San Diego)
It could also play a crucial role in high-profile discoveries like the recent ROV surveys that revealed thousands of corroding barrels linked to mid-20th-century DDT dumping off Southern California. Those missions produced stark imagery of the problem, but a human-occupied dive would have allowed scientists to make on-the-spot decisions about barrel sampling, trace-chemical measurements, and sediment core collection, as well as to inspect surrounding habitats for contamination impacts in real time. The immediacy of human observation could help shape quicker, more targeted responses to environmental threats of this scale.
And it’s not just the seafloor that matters. Some of the most biologically important parts of the ocean lie well above the bottom. The ocean’s twilight zone, roughly 200 to 1,000 meters deep, is a vast, dimly lit layer that contains one of the planet’s largest reservoirs of life by biomass. (My dive with WHOI was done to study the ocean’s twilight zone). Every day, trillions of organisms participate in the planet’s largest migration, the diel vertical migration, moving up toward the surface at night to feed and returning to depth by day. This zone drives global carbon cycling, supports commercial fish stocks, and is home to remarkable gelatinous animals, squid, and deepwater fishes that are rarely seen in situ.
Launching the Triton 3300/3 (Photo: Erik Olsen)
The Triton 3300/3’s 1,000-meter depth rating (I’ve been in one twice) puts the entire twilight zone within reach, enabling direct observation of these daily movements, predator-prey interactions, and delicate species that often disintegrate into goo in nets. Human presence here allows scientists to make real-time decisions to follow unusual aggregations, sample with precision, and record high-quality imagery that captures how this midwater world works, something uncrewed systems alone rarely match.
It could even serve as a classroom at depth for carefully designed outreach dives, giving educators footage and first-person accounts that no livestream can quite match. Each of these missions is stronger with people on site, conferring, pointing, deciding, and noticing.
While Monterey Bay would be a natural fit because of MBARI, Hopkins, and the sanctuary’s deepwater treasures, Southern California could be just as compelling. Catalina Island, with its proximity to submarine canyons, coral gardens, and cold seeps of the Southern California Bight, offers rich science targets and the existing facilities of USC’s Wrigley Marine Science Center. Los Angeles or Long Beach would add the advantage of major port infrastructure and a vast urban audience, making it easier to combine high-impact research with public tours, donor events, and media outreach. And San Diego with its deep naval history, active maritime industry, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and proximity to both U.S. and Mexican waters, could serve as a southern hub for exploration and rapid response to discoveries or environmental events. These regions could even share the vehicle seasonally: Monterey in summer for sanctuary work, Catalina/LA or San Diego in winter for Southern California Bight missions, spreading both benefits and funding responsibility.
The author in front of the Triton 3300/3 in the Bahamas (Photo: Erik Olsen)
For budgeting, a proven benchmark is the Triton 3300/3, a three-person, 1,000-meter (3,300-foot) human-occupied vehicle used widely in science and filming. New units are quoted in the four to five million dollar range, with recent builds coming in around $4–4.75 million depending on specifications. Beyond the vehicle, launch and recovery systems such as a 25–30-ton A-frame or LARS and the deck integration required for a suitable support ship can run into the high six to low seven figures. Modern acrylic-sphere subs like the Triton are designed for predictable, minimized scheduled maintenance, but budgets still need to account for annual surveys, battery service, insurance, and ongoing crew training. Taken together, a California-based HOV program could be launched for an initial capital investment of roughly $6–7 million, with operating budgets scaled to the number of missions each year. So, not cheap. But doable for someone of means and purpose and curiosity. See below.
Who would benefit if California restored this capability? Everyone who already works here. MBARI operates a world-class fleet of ROVs and AUVs but has no resident HOV. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Hopkins Marine Station, and USC’s Wrigley Marine Science Center train generations of ocean scientists who rarely get the option to do HOV work without flying across the country and waiting for a slot. NOAA and the sanctuaries need efficient ways to inspect resources and respond to events. A west-coast human-occupied research submersible based in Monterey Bay, Catalina, Los Angeles, or San Diego would plug into ship time on vessels already here, coordinate with ROV teams for hybrid dives, and cut mobilization costs for Pacific missions.
A new Triton 660 AVA submersible slips into the turquoise waters of the Bahamas, beginning its first voyage. Built for dives to 660 feet (200 meters), it offers passengers a front-row seat to reefs, shipwrecks, and marine life far beyond normal scuba limits, making it an ideal draw for high-end tourism. (Photo: Erik Olsen)
What would it take? A benefactor and a compact partnership. California has the donors (hello, curious billionaires!), companies, and public-private institutions to do this right. A philanthropic lead gift could underwrite acquisition of a proven, classed HOV and its support systems, while MBARI, Scripps, or USC could provide engineering, pilots, and safety culture within the UNOLS standards that govern HOV operations. No OceanGates. Alvin’s long record shows the model. Add a state match for workforce and student access, and a sanctuary partnership to guarantee annual science priorities, and you have a durable program that serves research, stewardship, and public engagement.
Skeptics will say that robots already do the job. They do a lot of it. They do not do all of it. If the U.S. is content to have only one deep research HOV based on the opposite coast, we will forego the unique perspectives and serendipity that only people bring, and we will keep telling California students to wait their turn or watch the ROV feed from their laptops or phones. California can do better. We did, for years, when the Delta sub spent long seasons quietly counting fish and mapping habitats off Ventura and the Channel Islands. Then that capability faded. If we rebuild it here, we restore a missing rung on the ladder from tidepools to trenches, and we align the state’s science, climate, and education missions with a tool that is both a laboratory and a conversion experience.
The author at more than 2000 feet beneath the surface of the ocean. (Photo: Erik Olsen)
Start with a compact, 1,000-meter-class HOV that can work daily in most of California’s shelf and slope habitats. Pair it with our ROVs for tandem missions and cinematography of the sub and its occupants in action. Commit a share of dives to student and educator participation, recorded and repackaged for museums and broadcast. Reserve another share for rapid-response science at seeps, landslides, unusual biological events, or contamination crises like the DDT dumpsite. Build a donor program around named expeditions to Davidson Seamount, Catalina’s coral gardens, and the Channel Islands. Then, if the community wants to go deeper, plan toward a second vehicle or an upgrade path. The science is waiting. The coast is ready. And the case is clear. California should restore its human-occupied submersible fleet.
Recently, I wrote a more personal essay than I usually would, one in which I reflected on the state of overfishing globally and the broader exploitation of our oceans.I hoped to draw attention to the new National Geographic documentary Oceans, featuring David Attenborough, which paints a broad and dire picture of the heath of the oceans and global fisheries…and it didn’t even cover deep sea mining which is a whole other megillah.
I’ve been following ocean conservation issues for decades, I’ve done numerous stories on the subject for major publications, and I’m deeply aware of the many threats facing the sea. These challenges extend to human society, too. Climate change, pollution, political instability, and species loss are just a few of the crises that fill our doom-scrolling feeds every day.
But not everything is lost.
Vermilion rockfish. (Photo: Robert Lee/NOAA)
Despite the scale of these problems, there are reasons for hope. Around the world, we are beginning to better manage some of our natural resources. There is growing awareness about how to extract from the planet in ways that do not destroy it. Slowly, we are learning how to sustain a growing, hungry population without collapsing the ecosystems we rely on. At least, that’s the hope. If you look around a bit, there are a few positive signs. I cited California’s Marine Protected Area program, but there are others.
Another particularly hopeful development is unfolding just off the coast of California.
The story of groundfish in California and the West Coast is one of collapse, struggle, rebirth, as well as evolving policy. Following passage of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1976, which was supposed to help the fishery by banning foreign commercial fishing, between 1976 and 1979, the West Coast groundfish fleet tripled in size, growing from about 300 to nearly 1,000 vessels. New technologies made those boats far more effective. By the mid-1980s, about half the fleet could electronically track their fishing paths and return to the same productive grounds again and again. Sophisticated fishfinders like the “Chromascope” gave vessels an unprecedented edge.
A fishermen tending a groundfish trawl net off the coast of Oregon in 2019. (Photo: John Rae/NOAA)
Groundfish catch soared. In 1976, domestic harvests (excluding Pacific whiting) totaled around 57,000 tons. By 1982, that number had more than doubled to 119,000 tons. Rockfish, barely counted in the earlier fishery, made up more than 40,000 tons of the catch by that year alone.
But the science hadn’t caught up.
Fishery managers at the time didn’t fully understand how slowly groundfish grow, how long they live, or how vulnerable they are to overfishing. As a result, catch limits were set too high. The boom quickly gave way to collapse.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, rockfish, bocaccio, Pacific ocean perch and other deep‑dwelling species teetered on collapse. Overfishing, excessive trawling, and habitat damage from bottom nets stripped populations across hundreds of miles of West Coast shelf. Regulators sounded the alarm and declared fishery disasters.
Sea bass in a California kelp forest (Photo: Erik Olsen)
Kenneth Weiss wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “Behind the sweeping action is a reluctant realization that the vast ocean has limits and cannot, as was long believed, provide an inexhaustible supply of fish.” Ya think?
To halt the decline, Congress and managers took bold, controversial steps. In 2003 a $46 million vessel‐buyback reduced the commercial trawl fleet by one‑third; by 2011 only about 108 vessels remained. That same year, the Pacific Fishery Management Council launched the groundbreaking Trawl Catch Share Program: individual fishing quotas based on historical catch and mandatory onboard observers. Within a year, discard rates plummeted from roughly 25 percent to below 5 percent.
In fact, California law explicitly prohibits bottom trawling in its state waters except under very limited conditions. Fish and Game Code § 8841 makes bottom trawling unlawful in state ocean waters unless a state commission determines that it is sustainable and low-impact. According to NOAA, commercial bottom trawling is only permitted within the California Halibut Trawl Grounds (CHTG), a small coastal zone from roughly 1 to 3 nautical miles offshore between Point Arguello and Point Mugu.
Santa Cruz Island in California’s Channel Islands (Photo: Erik Olsen)
There are gear restrictions, including bans on roller gear larger than eight inches and a requirement for bycatch reduction devices in shrimp and prawn trawl fisheries. Bycatch is nothing but pure waste, bordering on evil, and reducing it or stopping altogether should be a goal. The state also pushes more sustainable gear types and has phased out new permits for trawlers.
At the same time, an extensive system of area closures was put in place. As the documentary points out, if you protect a habitat, it can recover, and we’ve seen that in places like the Channel Islands. Since the early 2000s, Rockfish Conservation Areas and Cowcod Conservation Areas have helped protect critical habitat. Then, in 2020, new federal rules expanded essential fish habitat protections, closing nearly 90 percent of the seafloor off California, Oregon, and Washington to bottom trawling.
Fast forward: these measures have worked! By the mid‑2010s, most of the over‑90 managed groundfish stocks were recovering or rebuilt, some years ahead of earlier projections. Pacific ocean perch, for instance, had been declared rebuilt in 2017 after 17 years under rebuilding plans. The fishery earned sustainability certification from the Marine Stewardship Council in 2014. Today, only yelloweye rockfish remains overfished, with rebuilding projected by 2029.
According to John Field, who leads the Fisheries and Ecosystem Oceanography Team at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, this turnaround didn’t happen by accident. “The fleet, the scientists, the managers, and everyone else saw there was a serious problem, and worked together to make difficult choices and rebuild populations,” Field told California Curated. “The solution required restructuring the fishery to conserve the species, with many tough years for the fleet. Although the groundfish fishery still faces many challenges, most populations are thriving, market demand is recovering, and there is more domestic seafood on American dinner plates.”
Equipment and methods have evolved. Vessels switched from race‑to‑fish trawls to quota‑based systems, often fishing more selectively using non‑trawl fixed gear, longline, pots, hook‑and‑line for sablefish and flatfish. Electronic monitoring and observer programs help track catches closely (you gotta have enforcement).
Not all this has been smooth sailing. The shift to quotas and catch shares was controversial: many fishermen struggled with limited quotas, economic hardship, and uncertainty. Communities dependent on processors shrank as processors closed or consolidated. Some fishermen under‑caught allowable species to avoid hitting rockfish caps. Environmental groups have cautiously welcomed reopenings, but some expressed concerns that habitat recovery might still be fragile.
A ranger patrol boat off the coast of the Channel Islands in California (Photo: Erik Olsen)
So, looking back (and forward): policies over the past two decades, from trawl‐fleet reduction, gear rules, catch shares, quotas, habitat closures and strict rebuilding plans, not to mention MPAs, have turned the tide. Stocks are rebounding, many fisheries are sustainable, and management of the system is reviewed and changed if needed through amendments every two years. Of course, climate change and warming seas could render all this moot, so there’s still an element of keeping ones fingers crossed as we move forward.
This kind of drastic change takes time. And courage. And persistence. The long arc of recovery shows how science‑based regulation can bring back health to ocean ecosystems, and opportunity to coastal communities. Much of this work happens out of sight, in deep water and policy meetings alike, but its impact reaches every one of us: on our plates, in our economies, and in the resilience of the planet we all share.
In California’s southeastern desert, the Salton Sea stretches across a wide, shimmering basin, a lake where there shouldn’t be one. At about 340 square miles, it’s the state’s largest lake. But it wasn’t created by natural forces. It was the result of a major engineering failure. I’ve long been fascinated with the place: its contradictions, its strangeness, its collision of nature and human ambition. It reflects so many of California’s tensions: water and drought, industry and wilderness, beauty and decay. And it was only relatively recently that I came to understand not just how the Salton Sea came to exist, but how remarkable the region’s geological past really is, and how it could play a major role in the country’s sustainable energy future.
In the early 1900s, the Imperial Valley was seen as promising farmland: its deep, silty soil ideal for agriculture, but the land was arid and desperately needed irrigation. To bring water from the Colorado River, engineers created the Imperial Canal, a massive infrastructure project meant to transform the desert into productive farmland. But the job was rushed. The canal had to pass through the Mexican border and loop back into California, and much of it ran through highly erodible soil. Maintenance was difficult, and by 1904, silt and sediment had clogged portions of the canal.
The Southern Pacific Railroad was forced to move it lines several times as the raging, unleashed Colorado River expanded the Salton Sea. (Credit: Imperial Irrigation District)
To keep water flowing, engineers hastily dug a temporary bypass channel south of the clogged area, hoping it would only be used for a few months. But they failed to build proper headgates, critical structures for controlling water flow. In 1905, an unusually heavy season of rain and snowmelt in the Rockies caused the Colorado River to swell. The torrent surged downriver and overwhelmed the temporary channel, carving it wider and deeper. Before long, the river completely abandoned its natural course and began flowing unchecked into the Salton Sink, an ancient, dry lakebed that had once held water during wetter epochs but had long since evaporated. (This has happened many times over in the region’s history).
For nearly two years, the Colorado River flowed uncontrolled into this depression, creating what is now known as the Salton Sea. Efforts to redirect the river back to its original course involved a frantic, expensive engineering campaign that included the Southern Pacific Railroad and U.S. government assistance. The breach wasn’t fully sealed until early 1907. By then, the sea had already formed: a shimmering, accidental lake nearly 35 miles long and 15 miles wide, with no natural outlet, in the middle of the California desert.
In the 1950s and early ’60s, the Salton Sea was a glamorous desert escape, drawing crowds with boating, fishing, and waterskiing. Resorts popped up along the shore, and celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lewis, Rock Hudson, the Beach Boys, and the Marx Brothers came to visit and perform. It was billed as a new Palm Springs with water, until rising salinity and environmental decline ended the dream. There have been few if any similarly starge ecological accidents like it.
The erosive power of the floodwaters was immense. The river repeatedly scoured channels that created waterfalls, which cut back through the ground, eroding soil at a rate of about 1,200 meters per day and carving gorges 15 to 25 meters deep and more than 300 meters wide. (Credit: Imperial Irrigation District)
The creation of the Salton Sea was both a blessing and a curse for the people of the Imperial Valley. On the one hand, the lake provided a new source of water for irrigation, and the fertile soil around its shores proved ideal for growing crops. On the other hand, the water was highly saline, and the lake became increasingly polluted over time, posing a threat to both human health and the environment.
Recently, with most flows diverted from the Salton Sea for irrigation, it has begun to dry up and is now considered a major health hazard, as toxic dust is whipped up by heavy winds in the area. The disappearance of the Salton sea has also been killing off fish species that attract migratory birds.
The New York Times recently wrote about the struggles that farmers face as the Salton Sea disappears, and how the sea itself will likely disappear entirely at some point.
“There’s going to be collateral damage everywhere,” Frank Ruiz, a program director with California Audubon, told the Times. “Less water coming to the farmers, less water coming into the Salton Sea. That’s just the pure math.”
Salton Sea can be beautiful, if toxic (Photo: Wikipedia)
To me, the story of the Salton Sea is fascinating: a vivid example of how human intervention can radically reshape the environment. Of course, there are countless cases of humans altering the natural world, but this one feels particularly surreal: an enormous inland lake created entirely by accident, simply because a river, the Colorado, one of the most powerful in North America, was diverted from its course. It’s incredible, and incredibly strange. What makes the region even more fascinating, though, is that the human-made lake sits in a landscape already full of geological drama.
The area around the Salton Sea is located in a techtonically active region, with the San Andreas Fault running directly through it. The San Andreas Fault is a major plate boundary, where the Pacific Plate is moving north relative to the North American Plate (see our story about how fast it’s moving here). As pretty much every Californian knows, the legendary fault is responsible for the earthquakes and other tectonic activity across much of California.
If you look at a map of the area, you can see how the low lying southern portion of the Salton Sea basin goes directly into the Gulf of California. Over millions of years, the desert basin has been flooded numerous times throughout history by what is now the Gulf of California. As the fault system cuts through the region, the Pacific Plate is slowly sliding northwest, gradually pulling the Baja Peninsula away from mainland Mexico. Over millions of years, this tectonic motion is stretching and thinning the crust beneath the Imperial Valley and Salton Basin. If the process continues, geologists believe the area could eventually flood again, forming a vast inland sea, perhaps even making an island out of what is today Baja California. (We wrote about this earlier.)
Entrance to the Salton Sea Recreation Area (Wikipedia)
Yet even as the land shifts beneath it, the Salton Sea’s future may be shaped not just by geology, but by energy. Despite the ongoing controversy over the evaporating water body, the Salton Sea may play a crucial role in California’s renewable energy future. The region sits atop the Imperial Valley’s geothermal hotspot, where underground heat from all that tectonic activity creates ideal conditions for producing clean, reliable energy. Already home to one of the largest geothermal fields in the country, the area is now gaining attention for something even more strategic: lithium.
An aerial view of geothermal power plants among the farmland around the southern shore of the Salton Sea. (Credit: Courtesy Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)
Beneath the surface, the hot, mineral-rich brine used in geothermal energy production contains high concentrations of lithium, a critical component in electric vehicle batteries. Known as “Lithium Valley,” the Salton Sea region has become the focus of several ambitious extraction projects aiming to tap into this resource without the large environmental footprint of traditional lithium mining. Gov. Gavin Newsom called the area is “the Saudi Arabia of lithium.” Even the Los Angeles Times has weighed in, claiming that “California’s Imperial Valley will be a major player in the clean energy transition.”
Companies like Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR) and EnergySource are developing direct lithium extraction (DLE) technologies that pull lithium from brine as part of their geothermal operations. The promise is a closed-loop system that produces both renewable energy and battery-grade lithium on the same site. If it proves viable, the Salton Sea could significantly reduce U.S. dependence on foreign lithium and cement California’s role in the global shift to clean energy. That’s a big if…and one we’ll be exploring in depth in future articles.
Toxic salt ponds along the Western shoreline (Photo: EmpireFootage)
Such projects could also potentially provide significant economic investment in the region and help power California’s green energy ambitions. So for a place that looks kind of wrecked and desolate, there actually a lot going on. We promise to keep an eye on what happens. Stay tuned.
At Inspiration Point, Yosemite, sticky whiteleaf manzanita tends to occupy south slopes, greenleaf manzanita tends to occupy north slopes. (Photo: NPS)
As an avid hiker in Southern California, I’ve become a deep admirer of the chaparral that carpets so many of the hills and mountains in the region. When I was younger, I didn’t think much of these plants. They seemed dry, brittle, and uninviting, and they’d often leave nasty red scrapes on your legs if you ever ventured off-trail.
But I’ve come to respect them, not only because they’ve proven to be remarkably hardy, but because when you look closer, they reveal a kind of beauty I failed to appreciate when I was younger. I’ve written here and elsewhere about a few of them: the fascinating history of the toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia), also known as California holly, which likely inspired the name Hollywood and is now officially recognized as Los Angeles’ native city plant; the incredible durability of creosote bush, featured in a recent Green Planet episode with David Attenborough; and the laurel sumac, whose taco-shaped leaves help it survive the region’s brutal summer heat.
Manzanita branches in the high Sierra. The deep red colored bark enhanced by water. (Photo: Erik Olsen)
But there’s another plant I’ve come to admire, one that stands out not just for its resilience but for its deep red bark and often gnarled, sculptural form. It’s manzanita, sometimes called the Jewel of the Chaparral, and it might be one of the most quietly extraordinary plants in California.
If you’ve ever hiked a sun-baked ridge or wandered a chaparral trail, chances are you’ve brushed past a manzanita. With twisting, muscular limbs the color of stained terra cotta and bark so smooth it looks hand-polished, manzanita doesn’t just grow. It sculpts itself into the landscape, twisting and bending with the contours of hillsides, rocks, and other plants.
There are more than 60 species and subspecies of manzanita (Arctostaphylos), and most are found only in California. Some stand tall like small trees as much as 30 feet high; others crawl low along rocky slopes. But all of them are masters of survival. Their small, leathery leaves are coated with a waxy film to lock in moisture during the long dry seasons. They bloom in late winter with tiny pink or white bell-shaped flowers, feeding early pollinators when little else is flowering. By springtime, those flowers ripen into red fruits: the “little apples” that give the plant its name.
Manzanita flowers (Santa Barbara Botanical Garden)
One of manzanita’s more fascinating traits is how it deals with dead wood. Instead of dropping old branches, it often retains them, letting new growth seal off or grow around the dead tissue. You’ll see branches striped with gray and red, or dead limbs still anchored to the plant. It’s a survival strategy, conserving water, limiting exposure, and creating the twisted, sculptural forms that make manzanita distinctive.
And fire is key to understanding manzanita’s world. Like many California plants, many manzanita species are fire-adapted: some die in flames but leave behind seeds that only germinate after exposure to heat or smoke. Others resprout from underground burls after burning. Either way, manzanita is often one of the first plants to return to the land after a wildfire, along with laurel sumac, stabilizing the soil, feeding animals (and people), and shading the way for the next wave of regrowth.
Manzanita’s astonishing red bark The reddish color of manzanita bark is primarily due to tannins, naturally occurring compounds that also contribute to the bark’s bitter taste and deter insects and other organisms from feeding on it. (Photo: NPS)
Botanically, manzanitas are a bit of a mystery. They readily hybridize and evolve in isolation, which means there are tiny populations of hyper-local species, some found only on a single hill or canyon slope. That makes them incredibly interesting to scientists and especially vulnerable to development and climate change.
Their red bark is the result of high concentrations of tannins, bitter compounds that serve as a natural defense. Tannins are present in many plants like oaks, walnuts and grapes, and in manzanitas, they make the bark unpalatable to insects and animals and help resist bacteria, fungi, and decay. The bark often peels away in thin sheets, shedding microbes and exposing fresh layers underneath. It’s a protective skin, both chemical and physical, built for survival in the dry, fire-prone landscapes of California.
Whiteleaf manzanita leaves and berries (Photo: NPS)
The plants still have mysteries that are being uncovered. For example, a new species of manzanita was only just discovered in early 2024, growing in a rugged canyon in San Diego County. Named Arctostaphylos nipumu to honor the Nipomo Mesa where it was discovered and its indigenous heritage, it had gone unnoticed despite being located just 35 miles from the coast and not far from populated areas. The discovery, announced by botanists at UC Riverside, highlights that unique species localization, as the plants are found sometimes growing only on a single ridge or in a specific type of soil. Unfortunately, this newly identified species is already at risk due to development pressures and habitat loss. According to researchers, only about 50 individuals are known to exist in the wild, making A. nipumu one of California’s rarest native plants, and a reminder that the story of manzanita is still unfolding, even in places we think we know well.
A new species of manzanita – A. nipumu – was discovered in San Diego County last year (2024), surprising reserachers. (Photo: UCR)
For hikers, photographers, and anyone with an eye for the unusual, manzanita is a cool plant to stumble upon. I will often stop and admire a particularly striking plant. I love when its smooth bark peels back in delicate curls, looking like sunburned skin or shavings of polished cinnamon. It’s hard to walk past a manzanita without reaching out to touch that smooth, cool bark. That irresistible texture may not serve any evolutionary purpose for the plant, but it’s one more reason to wander into California’s fragrant chaparral, where more species of manzanita grow than anywhere else on Earth.
Desalination, the process of turning seawater into potable water, is gaining traction as a viable solution to California’s perennial drought issues. The Golden State, with its sprawling 850-mile coastline and notorious aridity, is primed for desalination to play a pivotal role in its water management strategies.
The mission of the Seawater Desalination Test Facility in Port Hueneme, Ventura. John Chacon / California Department of Water Resources
California’s history with droughts is long and storied, with the state experiencing some of its driest years on record recently. Traditional sources of water, such as snowpacks and reservoirs, have become increasingly unreliable due to the erratic patterns of climate change. While an atmospheric river storm in 2023 and several powerful storms in 2024 and 2025 significantly eased California’s drought conditions for the time being, there is widespread concern that serious drought conditions will soon return and become the new norm.
As a response, several desalination plants have emerged along the coast. One notable example is the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant in San Diego County, which is the largest in the Western Hemisphere, providing about 50 million gallons of drinking water daily.
Every day, 100 million gallons of seawater pass through semi-permeable membranes, producing 50 million gallons of fresh water delivered directly to municipal users. The Carlsbad plant, which has been fully operational since 2015, now provides roughly 10 percent of the freshwater supply used by the region’s 3.1 million residents—although at nearly double the cost of water from the region’s primary alternative sources.
Desalination is not just a process but a symphony of advanced technologies working in concert. The most prevalent method used in California is reverse osmosis (RO). RO employs a semi-permeable membrane that allows water molecules to pass through while blocking salt and other impurities. This membrane is the linchpin of the operation, designed to withstand the high pressures necessary to reverse the natural process of osmosis where normally, water would move from a low-solute concentration to a high-solute concentration.
Reverse osmosis desalination is an energy-intensive process, one that demands a significant amount of power to be effective. At its core, the technique involves forcing seawater through a semi-permeable membrane to separate salt and other minerals, yielding fresh water. This process, however, requires substantial pressure, much higher than the natural osmotic pressure of seawater, to push the water through the membrane. Achieving and maintaining this pressure consumes a considerable amount of energy. Furthermore, the energy demands are compounded by the need for constant system maintenance and the treatment of the highly saline brine that’s left over. This energy requirement is a key challenge in making reverse osmosis desalination a more widespread solution for water scarcity, as it not only increases operational costs but also has environmental implications, especially if the energy comes from non-renewable sources.
John Chacon / California Department of Water Resources
The science behind these membranes is fascinating. They are not just filters; they are engineered at the molecular level. The membranes are typically made from polyamide, created through complex chemical reactions that result in a thin film where the magic happens. Water molecules navigate through this film via tiny pores, leaving behind salts and minerals.
This scientific marvel, however, has additional environmental challenges. Along with the vast energy needs of reverse osmosis, there are also concerns about water pollution. Brine, which is the concentrated saltwater byproduct, must be carefully managed to avoid harming marine ecosystems when it’s discharged back into the ocean.
Charles E. Meyer Desalination Plant in Santa Barbara, California, plays a key role in improving water reliability and resiliency during the drought years. Florence Low / California Department of Water Resources.
Innovations continue to improve the technology, aiming to make desalination more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. New approaches such as forward osmosis, which uses a natural osmotic pressure difference rather than mechanical pressure, and the use of alternative energies like solar and wind power are on the horizon. There’s also ongoing research into biomimetic membranes, inspired by nature’s own filtration systems, such as those found in the roots of mangrove trees or in the kidneys of animals.
In addition to the sprawling, successful desalination plant in Carlsbad, numerous other projects are on the way. The Doheny Ocean Desalination Project, located in Dana Point, has seen a significant increase in projected costs but is still moving forward. It’s expected to be completed by 2027 and will provide about 5 million gallons of drinking water daily to residents in Orange County.
In November, the California Coastal Commission greenlit a permit for the Monterey Bay Area Desalination Plant, a vast $330 million seawater desalination plant in Marina, a modest city of 22,500 people located roughly 15 minutes north of the more prosperous Monterey. The proposed Cal-Am desalination facility, if finalized, is set to produce 4.8 million gallons of fresh water daily.
Monterey Bay at Moss Landing, California. Photo: Erik Olsen
However, Marina’s Mayor, Bruce Delgado, stands in opposition to the project. He argues that it would alter the character of Marina and negatively impact its natural surroundings. Delgado contends that while his city would shoulder the environmental and industrial impacts of the plant, the adjacent, wealthier areas such as Carmel-by-the-Sea, Pacific Grove, and Pebble Beach would enjoy most of the benefits.
In February 2024, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) released a report identifying future brackish water desalination projects to enhance the state’s water reliability. The report aims to meet goals outlined in California’s Water Supply Strategy: Adapting to a Hotter, Drier Future, which targets increasing water supply by implementing new brackish desalination projects providing 28,000 acre-feet per year by 2030 and 84,000 acre-feet per year by 2040.
As California looks to the future, the role of desalination is poised to expand. The state’s water plan includes the potential for more desalination facilities, particularly in coastal cities that are most affected by drought and have direct access to the sea. The integration of desalination technology with California’s complex water infrastructure speaks to a broader trend of marrying innovation with necessity.
The implications for drought-prone regions extend beyond just survival; they encompass the sustainability of ecosystems, economies, and communities. While desalination is not a panacea for all of California’s water woes, it represents a critical piece of the puzzle in the quest for water security in an era of uncertainty. As the technology advances, it may well become a cornerstone of how humanity adapts to a changing climate, making what was once undrinkable, a wellspring of life.
