h 



SECTION II 

 RECOMMENDATIONS 



The primary recommendation would have been to reduce the copper 

 discharge from the Key West desalination plant but this is in 

 progress thanks to the environmental concern of the Florida Keys 

 Aqueduct Commission and the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. 



It follows that the second recommendation would be to improve 

 future desalination plant designs to keep copper discharge at 

 the lowest possible level. Since copper loss reflects internal 

 damage to the facility and eventual increased maintenance costs, 

 it is beneficial to the owners of desalination plants to keep 

 copper discharge to a minimum. The use of titanium as the pri- 

 mary heat transfer surface may provide the best solution. Westing- 

 house Electric Corporation has already constructed a titanium 

 desalination plant in St. Croix and it would be beneficial to 

 examine the ecological impact of that plant to ascertain if 

 titanium is as environmentally compatible as suspected. 



It would also be useful to: 



1. Examine the modified discharge from the Key West 

 installation to determine if the engineering changes 

 do, in fact, reduce the copper discharge. 



2. Monitor the biological health of Safe Harbor to 

 determine how rapidly (and if) it recovers from 

 the copper polluted environment. 



3. Examine the impact of the improved Key VJest facility 

 to determine the effects of a desalination plant 

 with low copper discharge. 



4. Design an experimental program to determine the 

 ecological impact and dispersion of sudden effusions 

 containing high levels of toxicants. 



5. Conduct further investigations into the dynamics and 

 mechanisms of copper toxicity in the marine environ- 

 ment. 



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