A regional water agency has received the go-ahead to build a temporary facility in Redondo Beach, California, US that will turn seawater into drinking-quality water. For Carson-based West Basin Municipal Water District, the demonstration desalination project is one step toward a goal of obtaining nearly a tenth of its water supplies from the Pacific Ocean. In July 2009, the district received the final approval it needed from the Regional Water Quality Control Board. The California Coastal Commission and the US Army Corps of Engineers signed off on the plant in April. The USD 8.8 million project, set to be housed next to the Los Angeles Conservation Corps’ SEA Lab, will filter about 580,000 gallons of water daily through an old power-plant intake pipe. Water from the demonstration will not be used for drinking. Instead, the project will be used for research, particularly on water intake technologies. The project, intended as a temporary precursor for a full-scale desalination plant, will take about a year to build and will run for at least two years.