With the rainy season yet to come, water managers are wondering if this will be a wet or dry year. There's really no way to predict it, but the city of Antioch is resting easy. It has just employed a new desalination plant that promises a secure water future, one of the first operating desalination plants in the Bay Area, all thanks to the city's past.
The water comes from the Delta, a brackish mix of fresh and salt water. Upon arrival, the water is first sent through the normal treatment process.
"It's clean and filtered water, it just has a lot of salt in it. So, we pump that from A Plant all the way up to here. This is the first stage booster pump," said Superintendent Marcus Woodland, pointing to a huge, whining pump. "This pumps it to the top, which is the first stage membranes."
In reverse osmosis, salty water is pumped into long cylindrical vessels and forced, under high pressure, through membranes with tiny holes that only water molecules can pass through. Half of it is immediately discharged as clean drinking water.
"The other half will go down to this booster pump, which goes to this bottom area," said Woodland. "That has 17 vessels. That will recover about half the water that goes in there. Half of that will become drinking water, and the other half will go to Delta Diablo, which is the wastewater treatment plant."
From there, the salty brine is released back into the Delta. The plant cost about $100 million to build, but the power costs for the huge pumps, coupled with the cost of raw water, make the process too expensive for most cities. That's where Antioch's history tips the scales.
The city, nicknamed "Rivertown," was established in 1849 as a river stop for the Gold Rush. Because of that, Antioch enjoys primary water rights from the Delta, meaning it doesn't have to pay for the water it takes from it.
"This is the water treatment plant intake," said Stan Davis, pointing to an old black and white photo of the Antioch shoreline.
Davis began working as a city engineer in 1969 and retired as Public Works Director nearly 30 years ago. But even then, he said the city was already considering desalination as a water source.
"Well, it's the only city in the area that can do that," Davis said. "We had the only water rights in the area to begin with. And now we've got the ability to use the water all year and not just part of the year. I think it's great. It's good to have that backup there for the additional quantity of water when the water out there's not that good."
The desalination plant is used in the summer and fall when water flow from the rivers is low, allowing Bay water to push up into the Delta, making it salty. When the winter rains begin falling, the water becomes fresh again, and the plant can be taken offline. Since it opened on September 15th, the plant has been running 24/7, pumping out about six million gallons of fresh water per day.
Officials say it has the potential to supply 40% of the city's water needs. With construction costs going up, Woodland says it only makes sense for other cities to begin planning for desalination now.
"So, this would have been more beneficial a couple years ago," he said. "But everything's cyclical. So, if it was dry once, it will be dry again. At what point does it make financial sense for them to invest the money? Are they going to wait until they run out of water before they start seeking alternatives? Or are they going to see on the horizon that alternative water supplies are going to be needed?"
Just like the famous quote, the Bay Area is surrounded by "Water, water everywhere. Nor any a drop to drink." But not in Antioch. They understand that waiting for a drought to happen is the wrong time to be investing in the future.