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Pierce on Preventing Water Shortages in L.A.

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Gregory Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, was cited in a Los Angeles Times article about low water supplies in the L.A. region. As much of the county’s water supplies become unreliable due to less rainfall, wastewater recycling is becoming a more viable option. The Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant treats wastewater and releases it into Santa Monica Bay, but the L.A. Department of Water and Power hopes to turn it into an advanced purification facility to provide water for 2 million people by 2035. Pierce said the project is “a little bit late, obviously, but I think it will be early enough to avoid complete disaster in terms of people actually running out of water, and having to ration much more radically than we are right now.” He also pointed to San Fernando Valley groundwater as a valuable resource now that advanced technology is available to clean up polluted water.

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Pierce Provides Cost-Effective Options to Ocean Desalination

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Gregory Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, wrote an article for The Conversation to discuss how desalination may not be the most viable option for creating a more sustainable water supply. In an effort to combat California’s record-setting drought, Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced an $8 billion plan to increase the state’s water supply. The plan includes methods like water conservation, storage, recycling and ocean desalination. Pierce explains how desalination creates more consequences than solutions as it kills aquatic life, pollutes ecosystems with brine and wastewater that can end up in the ocean, and poses a very high cost. He instead suggests conserving water, reusing treated wastewater which is cheaper than desalination, and increasing storage capacity even in places with infrequent rain to capture stormwater. “Even cleaning up polluted local groundwater supplies and purchasing water from nearby agricultural users, although these are costly and politically difficult strategies, may be prudent to consider before ocean desalination,” said Pierce.

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