The last desal plan in SoCal just got shot down ... the plant in my area was voted down not long ago as well. There needs to be a bit more suffering and research before most are going to agree to the clear negative aspects ... I love fishing and a clean Bay too. We, however, are gonna run out of water. By that time its going to be an entire California event in which the plants arent supplying just the local water districts but most of the state. At that point were just gonna eminent domain Fort Ord and build an effluent pipe half way to Kauai.
I don't know if we're truly going to run out of water or not, but there are many measures it would make sense to take before building desalination plants, such as recycling water and more efficient agricultural water use.
Agricultural use accounts for the overwhelming majority of water use in CA. I doubt Bay Area and LA residential faucets will go dry before water use is reformed. The rural areas are massively out-voted by the urban centers.
