Operation and pollution generated by desalination plants located in areas of the Sea of Cortez and the Caribbean Sea: a study for the development of aquatic environmental regulation

Abstract

Globally, since the early 70's, one of the alternatives to address the shortage of water for human use and consumption, industrial and agricultural, is the desalination of seawater and brackish water, which generally involves the separation of salts from water that contains it, using different technologies, however, this process aside of produce water suitable for use, also generates a waste water with high concentrations of salinity, this wastewater is discharged to receiving bodies deliberately different, it represents an environmental risk primarily for the living organisms in aquatic ecosystems, because the modification of natural conditions of a habitat is considered a contamination and in this case hypersaline effluent (brine) can be toxic to the species of the receiving body. Because of this, it is vital to implement controls to regulate such discharges and mitigate the environmental impact that could generate in aquatic ecosystems receptors. To this end, this paper presents the formulation of a draft Mexican Official Standard setting maximum limits on the quality of the effluent concentrations of the desalination process, especially for the main ionic components present in hypersaline effluent (brine), whether these are discharged directly or mixed with treated wastewater.