Canary Islands Move To Lessen Salt
As first reported in the islands' Round Town News in January, the Canary Islands is considering taking an unprecedented step toward tackling rising salt levels in their territorial waters. The culprit is also an island necessity: the same desalination plants that provide the island chain with fresh tap water also discharge high levels of brine into the ocean during the process.
Desalination processes are big business in the largely affluent Canary Islands and throughout Mediterranean Spain, where drought and water shortages are an acute fact of life. The Spanish Ministry of Environment, therefore, awarded a grant of nearly 600,000 euros to Instituto Tecnologico de Canarias in hopes that the Institute will develop a means of desalination that does not emit such high levels of salt into the surrounding waters, out of concern for the health of marine life, fish stocks, and sea plants on the coast. As population rises in both Spain and its island territories, desalination will, of course, increase as a necessary tool for clean water production, and hopes are high that the grant will help further clean up a valuable commodity.
Other organizations are hoping the same, as the Institute is being joined by a who's who of Canary Island research organizations, including the islands' Institute for Marine Sciences and the Center for Research and Experimentation of Public Works.
-Equatorial Press Staff Report. Photo Courtesy of Fab.
