DESALINATION AT WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH
As part of the Saline Water Act of 1952, and the Anderson-Aspinall Act of 1961, the U. S. Department
of the Interior, Office of Saline Water, built at least six test facilities. The fifth, a pilot plant for research,
development and demonstration, was completed on Wrightsville Beach between U.S. highways 74 and
76, Salisbury Street and Causeway Drive in July 1964 by the Carrier Corp. at a cost of $948,000.
Municipal and state officials induced the federal government to pick Harbor Island by offering 25
acres of sandy marshland without charge.
In the early years at the facility, contractors conducted experimental work under standardized
conditions on seawater, fresh water, steam, electricity, compressed air, fuel storage, waste disposal and
reinforced concrete foundations for erection of pilot equipment or plants.
Stewart Udall, Secretary of the Interior, is quoted in a report from 1961, in the Congressional Record
– Senate: “This new approach to the economic conversion of saline water to fresh has only recently
reached the pilot plant stage of development. A 15,000-gallon-per-day pilot plant using one type of
freezing process is now operating on sea water at Wrightsville Beach, N.C.”
Senate hearings from May 1965 state, “Mechanical difficulties and some design problems are listed
as having prevented successful operation and fresh water production.”
The 1970s saw budget cuts, but the site remained open doing reverse osmosis in six pilot plant sites.
Successful lobbying in the early 1980s saw the land conveyed back to the town with restrictions by the
Department of the Interior when contractor test work at the plant completely stopped. It became the
site of the town’s municipal complex, police and fire, ball fields, park and historic square. (For more on
the history of this facility see Wrightsville Beach Magazine, August 2001.)
The saltwater intake for the Office of Saline Water test facility extended into Banks Channel on the
south side of the Causeway Drive bridge. The intake now is used by the UNCW Aquaculture program
behind the town hall facility. — Pat Bradford
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CAPE FEAR MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND SCIENCE
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM