California's first wave-powered desalination plant underway in Fort Bragg - KRCR

California's first wave-powered desalination plant underway in Fort Bragg | KRCR

FORT BRAGG, Calif. — Since almost completely running out of water in 2015, and again in 2021, the City of Fort Bragg is working to make sure it stays ahead of any future droughts by investing in desalination.

"We stopped allowing people to wash dishes and had them use paper products and things like that, just disposable plates and things like that. So it was very serious at that time," Director of Public Works for the City of Fort Bragg John Smith said. He says part of the reason why Fort Bragg was so impacted by the droughts is because there are no groundwater sources within the city.

"If we don't have the aquifer or the streams and those types of things flowing, then we just run out of water," Smith said.

Now, the city hopes desalination will prevent this same issue in the future.

One of two desalination projects in the city is a wave-powered desalination technology that will come from Oneka Technologies, a Canada-based company that has found a way to power desalination plants without using fossil fuels.

"There's no conversion steps to electricity, which most sort of wave and tidal power desal projects sort of gear themselves towards," Oneka Technologies Chief Commercial Officer Shawn Meyer-Steele said.

The Fort Bragg project is not the first wave-powered desalination project that Oneka has deployed, but it is the first in California, and it may not be the last in the state.

"If we look further down the road, if we are successful in doing other projects in California, we would certainly look at doing that manufacturing in California," Meyer-Steele said.

The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) recently gave a grant of $1.49 million to fund this pilot project. If it is successful, the city will continue to seek funding through additional grants, Smith said.

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