Desalination’s Slipping Resistance

The solution to California’s water shortage has always appeared obvious to outsiders. Their rationale goes like this: If you look at a map you’ll see that immediately to the west of the state there’s a body of water, and it’s pretty big. Just suck some water from there, filter out the salt and quit whining already. But insiders know it’s not that simple. California is exceedingly sensitive to environmental concerns, and proposals to desalinate Pacific Ocean water are met with stout resistance. Been that way for years. Lately, however, that dam of resistance has started to crumble. Consider this: Two very pro-environment California Democrats, former senator Barbara Boxer and state Assembly speaker Fabian Nunez, recently signed up to lobby for a proposed desalination plant in Huntington Beach. Desalination may not be perfect, Boxer said, but environmentally, it is now the best choice. What happened to change minds? Improvements in the way water is sucked from the ocean result in less damage to fish eggs and the like. Salt from the desalination process now is diffused widely back into the ocean so as not to create a zone of concentrated brine. And there’s a growing belief that desalination, if done right, appears to be the best environmental option. The national assembly of the League of United Latin American Citizens voted to support that Huntington Beach desalination plant. Dave Rodriguez, LULAC’s state president, said that since imported water is growing pricier, desalinated water may become cheaper alternative. Also, a drought-proof source of water will help the Orange County economy grow. “The time for debate and delay is over,” said Rodriguez. “The Latino community knows that water is life – whether for agriculture, business or clean safe urban drinking water.” I bring this up because if the Huntington Beach project is approved, which could happen soon, it would have ripple effects up and down the coast. There is now no official plan to site a desal plant in Ventura County, but one logically could go there. And if it does, it could go a long way toward helping the Conejo and San Fernando valleys’ economy by allowing businesses and residents to feel confident about their water security. • • • Does it seem to you that more business people are ignoring their emails? I found myself asking that question in recent weeks because I’ve been involved in a task that involves sending emails to a couple hundred of our area’s top leaders. And it has surprised me how much harder it is to get through to folks compared to even a year or two ago. I’ve increasingly resorted to a legacy technology – it’s called the telephone – as I’m forced to reach out in desperation. I know what you’re thinking: It’s always been that way. People at the top are hard to reach. And yes, that’s true. But here’s what’s different: It’s more prevalent now for non C-level types to ignore emails. While it has always been difficult to get through to chief executives of sizable companies, it’s now almost as iffy to reach accountants, lawyers, small-business owners – people you used to count on to respond to emails quickly. The phenomenon of business folks snubbing emails seems to be metastasizing. I assume that the proliferation of emails is the root of the problem. Because it is likely you now get hundreds of messages a day – a lot of them junk – those emails quickly stack up in your inbox, forming an electronic tower. The temptation is to perform triage: pick the few that obviously need attention and if you missed an important one, well, you’ll get a desperate phone call soon enough. What we need is a next-generation email system. One that’s somewhere between text messages and the old email system. One that’s more restrictive so that when you sign up for one legitimate newsletter you’re not electronically tagged to get 40 cheesy solicitations a day in perpetuity. One that does a better job of screening out messengers you didn’t invite, like the secretaries of old. Imagine the joy of receiving maybe a fourth the number of emails you get now – but they’re from real people who need to reach you. As we wait for our tech innovators to devise such a glorious messaging system, kindly do me this one favor: Go to your inbox right now, do a search for my name, and please, please respond to my email. Charles Crumpley is editor and publisher of the San Fernando Valley Business Journal. He can be reached at [email protected].