Laserfiche WebLink
<br />L J <br /> <br />APPENDIX "G" <br /> <br />SALINE WATER CONVERSION PROGRAM, A REVIEW AND A PROJECTION <br /> <br />by <br /> <br />John W. O'Meara, Staff Assistant, <br />Office of Saline Water, Washington, D. C. <br /> <br />The invitation to address the Missouri Basin Inter-Agency Committee is <br />a singular honor which I am glad to accept on behalf of the Office of Saline <br />Water, Department of the Interior. I bring you the personal greetings of <br />our Director, Dr. Arthur L. Miller, whom I am sure many of you know person- <br />ally through his sixteen years of service in the Congress where he tirelessly <br />worked for resources development as a'member of the Interior and Insular <br />Affairs Comnittee. We are particularly pleased by your invitation because <br />many people of inland America think of the saline water conversion program <br />only in terms of converting sea water to fresh and thereby overlook the <br />tremendous potential of producing potable water from the vast supplies of <br />readily available brackish water. <br /> <br />We are happy to have the opportunity to give you a first-hand descrip- <br />tion of the saline water conversion program, to review some of our research <br />activities, and to express our hope that in the not too distant future, we, <br />may De ao!e to J01n W1cn you 1n ne!plng solve cne complex prOD!em OL pruvLu- <br />ing ample supplies of fresh water. <br /> <br />Man's epic struggle to survive on this planet could be written in terms <br />of his constant concern and need for water. Through the ages, natural sup- <br />plies of water, fluctuating in an unpredictable and erratic manner, have <br />governed the rise and fall of civilizations. Some of the most creative <br />and cooperative ventures in the annals of human advancement were applied <br />to the development of water resources. Of all these endeavors, some of <br />the most outstanding were created by agencies represented here today. <br /> <br />As a part of his quest for water, man has been trying for a long time <br />to brew a drink of fresh water from the sea, probably a lot longer than most <br />people realize. For centuries people generally have known how to turn the <br />trick:-- just distill it. The basic concept of the science is probably as <br />old as the teakettle. But what the world is still searching for is the <br />answer to the question: how do you do this on a large scale at a cost <br />cheap enough to substitute for or augment water from conventional sources? <br /> <br />Necessity being the mother of invention, the first practical conversion <br />units came with the advent of the steamship and its requirement of fresh <br />water for boilers. Today most of the large ocean-going vessels have their <br />battery of evaporators. The Forrestall Class carriers of the United States, <br />for example, carry four SO,OOO-gallon-per-day evaporators to supply the water <br />needs of those huge ships and their large crews. On occasion, even 200,000 <br /> <br />1 <br />