Overlooking the Pacific Ocean, sits Diablo Canyon Power Plant’s desalination plant which is located on an 85 foot-high coastal terrace and is one of the largest facilities of its kind on the entire West Coast. The biggest is a 50-million gallon per day commercial desalination plant in Carlsbad, which by the way, is located near an existing power plant. It will start to supply a significant amount of fresh water to nearby communities starting in November.

Diablo Canyon depends on the desalination plant for fresh water. It supplies not only the water needs for its two reactors, it supplies all the water used by its 1,500 employees and the plant’s safety-related equipment. Diablo Canyon Power Plant is licensed to produce as much as 1.5 million gallons a day, even though the plant only uses about 675,000 gallons on average daily.

As San Luis Obispo County suffers through its fourth year of an unprecedented drought, the county Board of Supervisors is evaluating the potential of 825,000 gallons of fresh water from the plant as a new source for surrounding communities.

On Tuesday, Aug. 25, the Board of Supervisors took unanimous action to approve two recommendations to conduct feasibility studies.

The first directed staff to engage potential stakeholders in the Santa Maria and Los Osos Groundwater Basins regarding drought relief opportunities presented by the Diablo Canyon Power Plant Desalination Facility.

The second directs county staff to move forward on a parallel track to develop, in concert with PG&E, an emergency project to make desalinated water available to South County communities in the event of continued drought conditions.

This represents a major milestone as the county Public Works and PG&E have determined that supplying surplus water from DCPP is technically feasible. In the coming months, PG&E will move from a feasibility study to a more comprehensive project in cooperation with the County of San Luis Obispo and other external stakeholders.