Mobile water desalination units

[IDemo]

Would these provide one possible short term solution for areas of California where the tap is dry?

http://www.water.ca.gov/desalination/pud_pdf/Mobile_Desalination.pdf

Mobile water desalination units provide emergency water supply
wherever and whenever needed. The units can be easily moved
(via air, land, or marine transport) and deployed to drought
stricken and water stressed areas. Mobile desalination units
provide a very flexible way of supplying potable water to
communities by hooking-up to existing municipal water storage
and delivery systems. They can also be quickly and easily
decommissioned or moved to other locations should drought
conditions ease.

What is a Mobile Water Desalination Unit?

Mobile water desalination units are water treatment units – generally, Reverse
Osmosis (RO) mobile desalination units – that can be truck-mounted or air-lifted
enabling the provision of short-term emergency water supply as well as
supplemental supply for drought stricken or disaster areas. These units can be
rapidly deployed to water stressed localities to generate potable water from
contaminated local sources or from ocean water in coastal communities.

Mobile desalination units, also called ‘Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Units’
(ROWPU), provide potable water from non-potable water sources. The units can
produce fresh water from a variety of raw water sources such as wells, lakes, seas,
lagoons, rivers, and oceans. The units, resembling a large trailer, come in a variety
of sizes and use a variety of chemical treatments and membranes to filter and purify
water and make it suitable for human consumption.

[With whom]

1. What it not be more cost effective

Would it not be more cost effective to simply transport potable water to the areas needing it? Water of any type would need to be trucked in. Bring the units to an area close to the salt water source and connect to it with pumps and piping?

[FSogol]

2. Except that coasts and shores are often the place getting hit by natural disasters.

A mobile unit can go to the spot quickly after the disaster and start processing.

[With whom]

3. Case by case evaluation would be required.

Too often a blanket policy is enacted as SOP for a crisis. The mountains and inland areas require policies and procedures unlike those for areas with access to seawater. Our dysfunctional leaders too often don't think in terms of plans A, B, and C, like you do FSogol.