Table 4 



COMPARISON OF CAPITAL COSTS OF DESALTING PLANTS VERSUS 



CONVENTIONAL PLANTS IN THE ELEVEN CANDIDATE CITIES 



(thousands of dollars)' 



City 



Plant Size^ 

 (mgd) 



Total Capital Costs 

 Desalting Conventional 



Desalting Capital 



Costs as a Percent of 



Conventional Costs 



Beeville'. . 

 Dell City . 

 El Paso"* . . 

 Fort Stockton' 

 Freer . . . 

 Hebbronville 

 Italy . . . 

 Kingsville^'" 

 Port Mansfield 

 Rankin^ . . 

 Refugio . . 



57% 

 20 



38 

 27 

 35 

 53 

 49 



32 

 27 



Costs are expressed in dollars of 1966 value. 



Plant capacities based on projected 1985 municipal water requirements. 



Calculated at 750 parts per million total dissolved solids (ppm TDS) product water. All other cities are calculated at 

 500 ppm TDS. 



Incremental supplies for additional water requirements. All other cities are calculated for total water supply 

 requirements for 1985 for both supply and quality improvement. 



Several alternate conventional sources of water supply for El Paso are under active consideration. The study of the 

 feasibility of development of these sources has not progressed to the point where costs can be estimated. 

 *No proved alternate source of water supply with less than 1 ,000 ppm TDS is available to Port Mansfield; therefore, no 

 cost calculations were made for comparison. 



present cost of incremental water supplies. The 

 cost of new municipal water from conventional 

 sources will be considerably greater than the 

 average cost of water now deUvered for these 

 reasons: 



—Equipment, labor, and construction costs ad- 

 vance; the factor of inflation is ever present and 

 important. 



—Adequate conventional water supplies become 

 more difficult to secure and make available. 

 Longer pipelines may have to be built, deeper 

 wells drilled, more costly reservoirs built which 

 increase the cost of water to the ultimate con- 

 sumer. 



—The acquisition cost of existing water sheds, 

 pump stations, aqueducts, and distribution piping 

 grids have been written off and are not included in 

 water costs presently reported for the older water 

 systems. 



—To increase conventional water supply for 

 heavily populated areas, such as the eastern sea- 

 board megalopohs, additional prime land will have 

 to be set aside for new reservoirs which during 

 drought periods would still have difficulty meeting 

 the increasing water demands. If this prime land is 

 assessed at its true market value, the present tax 

 and amortization rates should be applied in any 

 comparison with desalted water. 



Generally, the cost of desalted water should not 

 be compared with the current cost of conventional 

 water, but rather with the cost of providing new 

 incremental suppUes at today's construction cost 

 level and with today's difficulties in securing new 

 water supplies. 



V. VALUE OF DESALTED WATER 



Standard quality and reliability are two de- 

 sirable attributes of desalted water. A third po- 

 tential attribute is the mineral by-products that 



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