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Board hears breakthrough ZLD pilot report; directs staff to pursue funding options
Summary
After presentations and public questions, the board asked staff to pursue funding alternatives for an advanced zero‑liquid‑discharge brine treatment pilot that developers say can achieve near‑99% recovery at lower cost; no vote was taken on committing district funds.
Directors received a detailed technical briefing on April 9 about a series of pilot tests for an advanced brine‑treatment and water‑recovery approach (described in the report as a zero‑liquid‑discharge or ZLD technology). Staff emphasized that the district currently lacks funds to deploy the technology at scale and asked the board whether it wanted staff to pursue external funding options.
Consultant and project lead (Easter) told the board the pilot series was intended to "advance the science" and that five pilots had been run across multiple sites. "The purpose of this pilot was to advance the science," Easter said. He said the team processed roughly 10,000 gallons of brine during the pilot, the base system ran about 10 gallons per minute in the tests, and the approach produced near‑99% recovery in small tests at a fraction of the energy cost of conventional thermal ZLD. Easter told the board he expects the technology is scalable and cited other potential commercial customers, including wineries and cities facing water shortages.
Public commenters pressed for operational data and questioned scale: Hank Krouchek (San Simeon resident) said he had requested daily pilot logs and argued the board needed records showing how much brine was actually processed in the pilot before funding or pursuing the technology further. "If you only processed 100 or 500 gallons of brine, there's no way you should be looking at something that is gonna process 20 to 50,000 gallons a day of brine," Krouchek said. Staff responded that some raw data are subject to NDAs and that the project has submitted extensive technical material to funders and peer reviewers; Easter said detailed datasets have been provided to grant partners and to the National Alliance for Water Innovation as part of peer review.
Board discussion focused on scaling and funding. Directors said the technology appears promising but agreed the district should pursue grant and other funding options rather than commit large local resources now. General Manager McElhaney said staff will pursue Army Corps and grant opportunities and continue to evaluate other disposal alternatives. The board gave staff direction to further explore funding avenues and report back; no final funding or contract award was approved on April 9.
