[thaumasiotes]

It's not true in the first place. Arab states, and Israel, make heavy use of it; desalinated water is easily affordable for US residents.

What makes US desalination impractical is not the cost of desalinating, but either or both of:

- the cost of building a plant in the first place

- the availability of cheaper fresh water

[webnrrd2k]

Southern California, for example, dumps most of it's rain water into the ocean. I'd bet that capturing some of that would be much cheaper in the long run.

it's not hard to come up with some creative solutions... How about a giant bag or huge tanks out in the ocean for holding the water, instead of building dams. Or injection wells to replenish the water tables during the rainy season, pumping it out during the rest of the year.

It just seems weird that millions of gallons of fresh water gets dumped into the ocean, and nothing is done to capture even some of that water.