Disease CP – Vaccines

Negative
 1nc – CP Shell
Text: The United States federal government should establish a national emergency
immunization program.

A national emergency immunization program solves the next pandemic –

centralization is key.
Thomas Kenyon, 2-2-2021, [Chief Health Officer at Project Hope and former director of the Center for
Global Health at the CDC, "The One Thing We Must Get Right Before the Next Pandemic", Project Hope,
https://www.projecthope.org/the-one-thing-we-must-get-right-before-the-next-pandemic/02/2021/?
utm_source=googlegrants&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=global
%20pandemic&utm_campaign=Paid&gclid=Cj0KCQjw8vqGBhC_ARIsADMSd1AcHjDDBhDwaHCZtjh1Y0m
e-WSMRNknSust0RfgFz1jeGQw1afiBHEaApR7EALw_wcB //Weese]

As hard as it is to imagine, the next COVID-like pandemic could strike any day now. And before it does ,
it is critical that the U.S.
establishes a national program to rapidly deliver effective new vaccines to avert cataclysmic levels of
mortality, economic destruction, social upheaval, and insecurity. Though COVID-19 has tragically killed more than
400,000 Americans in its first year alone, the next new pandemic virus could be even more transmissible and lethal. COVID-19 has damaged
economies, compromised our children’s development, and threatened our future as a nation. But even more alarming is the reality that many
scientists have long predicted a pandemic that would claim tens of millions of lives. It hasn’t happened yet, but it’s just a matter of time. We
have a lot to be thankful for to fuel our optimism. The new mRNA COVID-19 vaccines have been a phenomenal
accomplishment and will be a game-changer. Both vaccines are safe and highly efficacious in preventing severe disease and
were developed in a matter of months, not years. Crucially, it looks like these vaccines can be modified for variant strains of COVID-19 as they
evolve. And there are more efficacious vaccines in the pipeline. This scientific advancement, fueled by significant and rapid investment, bodes
well for timely vaccine development with the next pandemic. And we have seen that non-pharmacologic measures like
masks, social distancing, and hygiene, if strictly implemented, can buy us some time as new vaccines are developed. Furthermore, in the
National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, and Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, we have some of the leading scientists and health agencies in the world. And working alongside
them are highly-skilled health workers who have been the true heroes this first year in caring for those sick with COVID-19 disease. But time
really matters when it comes to preventing an outbreak from advancing to an epidemic or global pandemic. Delaying effective control measures
for days or weeks leads to exponential growth of new infections and deaths. That is why it’s not enough to accelerate clinical trials and
manufacturing for new vaccines alone as has been done for COVID-19 in the U.S. — there
must also be a rapid delivery system
to immunize at least 80% of the population to reach herd immunity , beginning with those at greatest risk. Being
brand new products, it is somewhat understandable that there is not yet sufficient COVID-19 vaccine supply available on the market to reach
everyone in need. This will improve. However, while every effort is being made to scale up vaccine production as safely and quickly as possible,
insufficient supply is only part of the explanation for why after the first two months of vaccinations, we haven’t even reached 5% of the U.S.
population. The true reason is that inthe U.S. we have a conglomerate of vaccine delivery services across 50 states,
hundreds of cities, and more than 3,000 counties that are not interrelated to form a unified whole. Each state, city, and county has
essentially been left to their own devices and ingenuity to create a vaccination system during a raging
pandemic, further overwhelming already exhausted and underfunded state and local health
departments. All of them must form their own supply chains to maintain the cold chain so the vaccine doesn’t spoil, as well as their own
communication strategy, vaccine operations, staff training, patient registration, and public information systems. This is terribly inefficient and
has clearly not served us well with COVID-19. So what would a national emergency immunization program look like?
The roles and responsibilities at the federal level would remain relatively the same: the White House for leadership, Congress
for allocating funds, the NIH in charge of vaccine research and development, the FDA responsible for
oversight of regulatory requirements for vaccine registration and manufacturing, the CDC for national
guidelines and communication with the public, and the Department of Health and Human Services for
vaccine procurement and funding to the states for vaccine delivery . Two things would need to be vastly different for it
to truly be a national program: federal funding and clearly communicated guidance and support for
standardization across state and local health departments. This federal support would provide logistical
consistency and standardization, making the process faster and more efficient . It would include a nationwide
command structure, patient eligibility criteria, an online registration system, a helpline, educational
materials, and public service announcements. It would also clearly define the roles for external workers like FEMA and the
National Guard, as well as the private sector. It would offer guidelines for different types of venues to use, such as vacant schools, community
centers, and sports facilities. And it would provide personnel from the federal level to assist states and local tribal authorities to administer the
funding and move resources (funds, staff, and supplies) through the system. Of course, enough flexibility would need to be incorporated into
the system to allow for states and local health officials to maintain a leadership role in their state, to be creative and innovative in vaccinating
the local hard-to-reach populations they know best, and to leverage local resources with those coming from the federal level. We can — and
must — do this now as soon as COVID-19 is brought under control. While it would be important to embed the creation
of a national emergency immunization program into federal and state legislation, much of this could be done with current resources, agencies,
and mandates. The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us painful lessons. We don’t want to repeat them. We owe it to those Americans who have
lost their lives, and to their families, to create a new reality so this never happens again. It is up to us — nobody else.
 2nc – CP Solves
The counterplan builds on scientific innovations achieved in COVID – that solves and is
cost effective.
Dylan Matthews, 5-20-2021, [senior correspondent at Vox, "How to build a vaccine fire hose", Vox,
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22397914/vaccine-mrna-adenovirus-manufacturing-process-
investment //Weese]

The Covid-19 pandemic is still a threat. The virus is currently walloping India, Brazil, and other countries, and new waves could yet erupt in
places where the pandemic had been suppressed. But the devastation of the past year has come with one big silver lining: a
massive leap forward in vaccine development. The Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca/Oxford
vaccines were made possible by recent innovations in vaccine platform technology . Vaccines, which generally required
the use of dead or inactive viruses, used to take years to develop. The new generation of mRNA vaccines (in the case of Pfizer and
Moderna) and adenovirus vaccines (in the case of Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca) has simplified the process of
developing vaccines for new diseases. What used to take months and years can now take weeks — or less.
In the case of the Moderna vaccine, for instance, it took three days. The “recipe” for the Moderna vaccine was developed in January
2020, before Covid-19 even flared up in the US. But it’s one thing to come up with a vaccine, and entirely something
else to manufacture it on a mass scale. That’s where the world has stumbled and where concerted planning now can make sure
we’re prepared for the future. If we’re to have a better chance to fight the next pandemic — and there will be a next one
— the US needs to build on these vaccine tech innovations and make investments to establish
permanent facilities producing mRNA and adenovirus vaccines. The need for such infrastructure has been made clear by
this pandemic. Because mRNA and adenovirus tech is so new, the government and industry have had to put together the infrastructure to
rapidly produce millions of vaccines on the fly. The result has been a rush to scale up previously fringe manufacturing techniques as quickly as
possible — an impressive effort, but one that’s still fallen short of need. Moreover, in the cold logic of profit-maximizing, just-in-time
manufacture of vaccines has proven to be inadequate to meet a global challenge of this magnitude. A vaccine
production system with plenty of slack, one that can be pivoted to mass production of different vaccines at a moment’s notice, is
what the US and the international community should be building toward. “We need a ready response mechanism
for vaccines to be developed and manufactured at a grand scale during any infectious disease
emergency,” Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, says. Andy
Weber, a former assistant secretary of defense for biodefense and fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks, concurs: “The goal needs to be to
compress the times along the whole system.” Vaccine facilities that are up and running 365 days a year — and that could be redirected to pump
out different vaccines depending on the outbreak — would be a tremendous weapon for global public health. And the cost
would be well worth it. More than 3.4 million people around the world have died from Covid-19. The cost to the world economy totals
$22 trillion. A plan for permanent mRNA vaccine facilities that run all year long could cost as little as tens of
billions of dollars in government spending a year — a rounding error next to the Biden administration’s multitrillion-dollar
stimulus and infrastructure plans, and a small fraction of the cost of the pandemics the spending would prevent .
The leap in vaccine development has put us in a better position to fight the next pandemic, but only if
we build the infrastructure to do it.

mRNA and adenovirus vaccines can be quickly developed, but low manufacturing
capacity prevents deployment.
Dylan Matthews, 5-20-2021, [senior correspondent at Vox, "How to build a vaccine fire hose", Vox,
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22397914/vaccine-mrna-adenovirus-manufacturing-process-
investment //Weese]
The promise of mRNA and adenovirus vaccines Until 2020, vaccines were largely produced using four methods , outlined
by my colleague Kimberly Mas in the video above. The two most common types of vaccines involve using either an “attenuated” virus — that is,
a virus that has been considerably weakened — or an “inactive” virus. Both approaches prompt the human immune system to respond by
developing antibodies, without actually inflicting a full-on infection. An example of the attenuated-virus type is the measles vaccine; the
seasonal flu vaccine tends to be the inactive type. A third type of vaccine uses just a part of a virus; the Hepatitis B vaccine works this way.
Finally, a fourth, less common type of vaccine uses a weakened version of a toxin secreted by a bacterium (in the case of vaccines targeting
bacteria rather than viruses). The tetanus shot is made with this method. The problem with these methods is that none of these
vaccines could be developed particularly rapidly. They require constant experimentation, years of trial and error, before
hitting on a variant of the pathogen or toxin that was weak enough to avoid bad symptoms in the vaccinated but strong enough to protect
against the real deal. mRNA vaccines, the first two commercial examples of which are the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19
vaccines, work differently. They use synthesized messenger RNA (mRNA), a type of genetic instruction that tells cells how to create specific
proteins. If you inject mRNA from a pathogen into an organism, its cells will produce some of the pathogen’s proteins, prompting the
organism’s immune system to develop antibodies against the pathogen. Adenovirus vaccines, like the Johnson & Johnson and
AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccines, use a similar principle, but with DNA inserted into a harmless virus carrier (typically “adenoviruses,” a
category that includes the viruses that cause the common cold and pink eye as well as harmless viruses of the kind used as vectors) rather than
mRNA. These are known as vaccine “platform” technologies because they provide a generalized approach
that can be used to target a lot of different diseases. Instead of spending years tweaking weakened versions of viruses,
researchers can simply sequence the virus, produce an mRNA or adenovirus vaccine based on it, and
then test that vaccine. Moderna designed its Covid-19 vaccine over a weekend in January 2020, two months before the pandemic hit
full force in the US. A virologist named Eddie Holmes had tweeted out the genome of the virus on January 10; on January 13, Moderna used
that genome to develop a vaccine candidate. It took another 11 months of rigorous testing for the FDA to allow the vaccine to be used. The
adenoviruses weren’t developed quite as fast, but the process wasn’t too shabby — AstraZeneca’s trials started in April 2020. This has been
great news for ending the Covid-19 pandemic. But it’s what lies ahead for these platform technologies that’s truly exciting. Part of why testing
these vaccines took so long is that no mRNA vaccine had even been found effective before Covid-19; adenovirus vaccines had more of a track
record, but are similarly a recent innovation. But now
we have several vaccines suggesting these vaccine platforms
can work. That suggests we can develop vaccines much more rapidly the next time a major outbreak of
not just a coronavirus but other infectious diseases occurs. Suppose the year is 2025. H5N1, a.k.a. “bird flu,” becomes
transmissible via air, either naturally or because of an accident at one of the labs that is currently trying to make it airborne (yes, this is a real
thing that people are doing for some reason). If this had happened during the bird flu scare of the mid-aughts, vaccine development could’ve
taken years. But because of the Covid-19 experience, labs in 2025 will be able to quickly sequence the airborne strain’s genome and develop
mRNA and adenovirus candidates. But then comes the hard part. Why the world didn’t make mRNA and adenovirus
vaccines fast enough The rapidity of vaccine development enabled by mRNA and adenovirus platforms is fairly miraculous. But the
situation is more complicated than the hopeful story above suggests. Recall that the Moderna vaccine, designed in January 2020,
wasn’t okayed by the FDA until December 2020. Some delay like that is inevitable and desirable. There is a chance of bad side
effects from untested vaccines, and you want to do basic safety and effectiveness tests before going to massive worldwide deployment. We
can speed up the testing process for vaccines in future pandemics using techniques like human challenge
trials, and compressing phases of testing, but there will always be some delay between the vaccine’s formulation and its
approval. Where there’s more room for improvement is the period between when the vaccines were approved (December 2020) and when
they became plentiful enough that any adult in the US who wanted one could get one (late April 2021). That’s “only” a few months, but
between December 11 (when the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine got an emergency use authorization) and April 19 (when the Biden administration
announced all adults would be eligible for vaccination), 268,632 Americans died of Covid-19. A more plentiful vaccine
stock earlier on could have shaved tens if not hundreds of thousands of deaths off of that total. So, why
didn’t we have a bigger stockpile? It’s largely not due to intellectual property concerns that have generated a lot of ink and
controversy. As Recode’s Rebecca Heilweil explains, there are technical bottlenecks that make mRNA vaccine
production hard to ramp up: mRNA can’t just be injected into the body by itself. It’s too fragile and would be
destroyed. That’s why vaccine researchers use lipid nanoparticles to protect the mRNA molecules as they
travel through the human body. Making lipid nanoparticles on a scale that could contend with the demand for Covid-19
vaccines is not so easy, especially while the pandemic is still raging. One challenge vaccine manufacturers face is having to find specialty
ingredients for lipid nanoparticles. In particular, Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers are racing to find a special kind of charged lipid called ionizable
cationic lipids, which essentially facilitate the entrance of the mRNA into the cell. These ionizable cationic lipids are made synthetically in what
can be an incredibly complex process, and can require between 14 and 20 steps, according to Padma Kodukula, the chief business officer at the
genetics medicine company Precision Nanosystems that works on mRNA and lipid nanoparticle technology. Beyond just producing these
difficult-to-produce lipids, vaccine producers have to carefully combine the lipids with the mRNA for their vaccines, a difficult and proprietary
process that is essentially done in-house. Derek Lowe, a biologist and blogger at Science magazine, has detailed how this works for Pfizer and
Moderna: Turning a mixture of mRNA and a set of lipids into a well-defined mix of solid nanoparticles with consistent mRNA encapsulation,
well, that’s the hard part. Moderna appears to be doing this step in-house, although details are scarce, and Pfizer/BioNTech seems to be doing
this in Kalamazoo, MI and probably in Europe as well. Everyone is almost certainly having to use some sort of specially-built microfluidics device
to get this to happen — I would be extremely surprised to find that it would be feasible without such technology. … These will be special-
purpose bespoke machines, and if you ask other drug companies if they have one sitting around, the answer will be “Of course not”. This is not
anything close to a traditional drug manufacturing process. Because this is all so new, pharmaceutical companies had
nothing close to the necessary capacity to produce enough mRNA vaccines for everyone in the US who wanted one in January.
And they still don’t have enough capacity to produce enough for everyone in the world who wants one
right now. It’s a similar story for adenovirus vaccine production, which has a different process but experienced no less
a bottleneck at the manufacturing stage. These bottlenecks could continue to be a problem in the
coming years and against future pandemics. Pharmaceutical companies are efficient profit-seeking beasts
biased toward just-in-time manufacturing and other low-slack, higher-profit technologies. They’re not going to keep more mRNA
and adenoviruses facilities around than they need during non-pandemic times. “It’s going to be very hard to
convince a company to keep a mothballed facility going,” Adalja says. “How are you going to make this something that’s not adverse on ROI
[return on investment] for a pharma company?” This is where a concerted government effort to build and maintain
this infrastructure comes in.

Increasing vaccine development is feasible and solves.

Dr. Seth Berkley, 6-9-2021, [former medical epidemiologist for the CDC and Center for Infectious
Diseases of the US as well as the Officer of the Health Sciences Division at the Rockefeller Foundation,
"We Must Improve Vaccine Manufacturing Before the Next Virus", Time,
https://time.com/6072101/improve-vaccine-manufacturing/ //Weese]

It should worry everyone that experts surveyed by TIME regarded both increasing funding in a post-COVID-19
world for vaccine development and scaling up of manufacturing capacity feasible —but improving equitable
vaccine distribution was not. To stop the next pandemic in its tracks we need to ensure that people all over the
world are protected quickly, and that will entail having all these pieces in place. The good news is, all these elements are
feasible, and indeed starting to work today. On vaccine R&D, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), was set up with
the precise purpose of identifying and investing in R&D for vaccines against emerging infectious diseases with epidemic potential. So, when it
came to COVID-19, with CEPI’s and other R&D support, as well as industry engagement, the scientific and vaccine manufacturing community
rallied, producing the first safe and effective vaccine in record time—just 327 days. Today we have not just one but 15 in widespread use.
Increased investment now could get us there even faster the next time , particularly given the potential of the
relatively new RNA vaccine technologies that have proved so effective with COVID-19. These plug-and-play vaccine
technologies not only make it possible to identify and develop antigens rapidly, but much of the regulatory
testing and approval can be done in advance, even before we know what the threat is . As for manufacturing, it
may be difficult to immediately discern when there are severe supply shortages, but the world has actually rapidly built up manufacturing
capacity during COVID-19. Waiving intellectual property has been talked about a lot as a potential solution for boosting production. But the
growth we have seen in the past year has been achieved through technology transfers, where both the intellectual property and the vital know-
how needed to make vaccines is shared between manufacturers.
 2nc – AT: Doesn’t Solve Globally

US immunization programs are exported globally, but new approaches are key to
success.
Nellie Bristol, Michaela Simoneau, and Katherine Bliss, 9-27-2019, [Nellie Bristol is a Senior
Associate at the Global Health Policy Center. Michaela Simoneau is a Program Manager at the Global
Health Policy Center. Katherine Bliss is a Senior Fellow at the Global Health Policy Center, "Enhancing
U.S. Leadership in a New Era of Global Immunization", Center for Strategic and International Studies,
https://www.csis.org/analysis/enhancing-us-leadership-new-era-global-immunization //Weese]

Immunization is one of the most effective and cost-effective disease control and prevention tools.
Recognizing the unprecedented power of vaccines, the U.S. government has long been a leading
supporter of immunization programs around the world. This investment benefits the United States
directly by preventing and controlling potentially epidemic-prone diseases at their source, thus
protecting Americans at home and abroad. Immunizations also contribute to global stability and
economic growth by improving health worldwide. While global immunization coverage is at its highest
level ever, rates have stalled over the last decade and even regressed in some places.1 New approaches
are needed to jump start further progress. Expanded immunization coverage not only prevents disease
and saves lives but is essential to the global push for improved primary health care, universal health
coverage, and health security.
 NB – Politics – Popular

Increasing vaccines is politically popular – Covid proves.

Kevin Breuninger, 4-27-2021, [politics reporter for CNBC, “Americans support Biden’s spending and
want him to spend more, polls show”, CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/27/americans-support-
bidens-spending-want-him-to-spend-more-polls-show.html //Weese]

Recent polls from NBC, Reuters/Ipsos, CNBC and The Washington Post-ABC News consistently show Biden receiving his highest
marks for his handling of the pandemic. The president’s Covid response won 69% approval in NBC’s national
survey, compared with 27% who disapprove. That poll, conducted from April 17 to April 20 among 1,000 U.S. adults, has a margin of
error of plus-or-minus 3.1 percentage points. The latest from Reuters/Ipsos, published Tuesday, had similar findings: 65% approve of Biden’s
job on the pandemic, while 29% disapprove. The national opinion poll surveyed 4,423 adults from April 12 to April 16. It has a credibility interval
— described as a measure of the poll’s precision — of 2 percentage points for the full sample, Reuters said. Polls show Americans
still
see the coronavirus as one of the most pressing issues facing the country. They also are more likely to
look to the government for solutions, according to NBC’s latest: Fifty-five percent of respondents said the
government should do more to solve problems and help meet the peoples’ needs, versus 41% who said it’s doing too much.
Biden stressed from the start that his administration’s ability to fight Covid depended on the passage of the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, dubbed
the American Rescue Plan. “Absent additional government assistance, the economic and public health crises could worsen in the months
ahead,” the White House said on the day Biden was inaugurated. The legislation included several sweeping spending measures, including
sending direct payments of $1,400 to most U.S. adults, $350 billion in aid to state and local governments and an extension of federal
unemployment benefits. Since Biden took office, the U.S. has significantly ramped up vaccine distribution and
vaccination rates. Asked in the Post-ABC poll about the stimulus package itself, 65% of respondents said they supported
it, versus 31% who opposed it. The survey was based on phone interviews with a random national sample of 1,007 adults
conducted from April 18 to April 21. It has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.5 percentage points. In NBC’s poll, 46% of respondents
said the Covid package is a good idea, a plurality that far outweighs the 25% who called it a bad idea and the 26% who
had no opinion.
Affirmative
 2ac – No Solvency
Vaccine development is costly, takes forever, and doesn’t solve globally.
H. Cody Meissner, 6-17-2020, [Chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Disease and Professor of
Pediatrics at Tufts Uniersity School of Medicine, " Ask the Expert: Why is vaccine development against
COVID-19 disease so difficult? ", American Academy of Pediatrics,
https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/06/17/covid19vaccines061720 //Weese]

Vaccine development for any infectious disease is a slow and arduous project. It generally requires more
than 10 years to produce a licensed product and often costs more than $500 million . For a novel virus that is
poorly understood such as SARS CoV-2, the process is particularly complex. However, the need for a safe and effective vaccine is indisputable.
Immunity to the virus that causes COVID-19 disease will be acquired in one of two ways: from a vaccine or from infection. Most people will
prefer to acquire immunity to this potentially severe disease from vaccination. Challenges in conducting clinical trials The problems with
vaccine development are substantial. Multiple vaccine platforms are in development, and clinical trials should not compete for
subjects. Therefore, enrollment in a clinical trial with different candidate vaccines should be centralized. Conducting a randomized
clinical trial during a pandemic will be difficult because the location of disease outbreaks may be difficult
to predict. Vaccine trials will be conducted by different manufacturers, and the endpoints of clinical trials should be harmonized as much as
possible so that relative efficacy can be determined clearly. Ideally, a central investigational review board will oversee many candidate vaccine
trials. Defining effectiveness What will be the definition of an effective vaccine? Should reduction in mortality be the threshold, or should it be
reduction in severe disease (hospitalization) or prevention of infection? What degree of prevention will be acceptable — a 50% reduction, a
75% reduction, a 90% reduction relative to placebo recipients? Will a vaccinated person still be able to spread the wild type virus to susceptible
contacts (as happens with recipients of the killed polio virus vaccine)? Different populations (such as children vs. adults) may
respond differently to different vaccines and may require separate endpoints to define a successful vaccine. Can the candidate
vaccine be co-administered with existing vaccines? With high morbidity and mortality rates, certain populations may
be reluctant to participate in randomized trials, especially after one vaccine is shown to have some
degree of efficacy and is available. What dose will be evaluated in a new vaccine? Will a vaccine adjuvant be necessary to stimulate
a protective antibody concentration? Which adjuvant? What will the duration of immunity be? Will immunity last a season, a year or longer?
Will booster doses be necessary? Immunity from infection by conventional coronavirus is not sustained and infection recurs. At the present
time, the serologic correlate of protection is not known. What is the role of T cell function in preventing infection? Once a specific antibody
concentration is known to be protective, demonstration of seroconversion may replace the need for efficacy trials. Vaccine safety Safety is
paramount. Immune enhancement of disease has been encountered with earlier vaccines, such as the killed measles vaccine and the
formalin inactivated respiratory syncytial virus vaccine. The recently licensed dengue vaccine saves many lives around the globe. But among
seronegative vaccinated children, there is a small increase in risk of serious infection relative to seronegative placebo recipients. Multisystem
inflammatory syndrome in children appears to be a cytokine storm stimulated by specific viral antigens in genetically predisposed children.
Thoughtful selection of antigen(s) included in a vaccine is critical. Thorough
assessment of a candidate vaccine’s safety
requires sufficiently long follow-up to address delayed untoward reactions . How long will that be? How many
subjects must be evaluated before a vaccine is deemed safe. Perhaps 20,000 subjects who receive a candidate vaccine or placebo will be
sufficient. But that is unlikely to detect less common adverse events. Manufacturing and distribution challenges Once a successful
vaccine is demonstrated, manufacture and distribution will need to be addressed. Millions of vaccine doses will be
required for each country, and manufacturing capacity will be stretched. The world population is nearly
7.7 billion people, and equity will demand access for all people. Fair global distribution of the vaccine is
essential. Who will receive the initial doses as a vaccine becomes available? Cost should not be permitted to impact access to the vaccine,
but a pharmaceutical company still must be able to recoup development costs and derive profit from a
successful vaccine. Although unlikely, the global pandemic might end before a vaccine is available. This happened with SARS-CoV-1 virus.
The last known cases were in 2004. The global need for a vaccine in many geographic areas justifies the efforts by different vaccine
manufacturers. While it is unlikely that more than a few vaccines will be safe and effective, manufacture and distribution of vaccines will
require unprecedented cooperation among governments, private pharmaceutical companies and the academic community.
 1ar – No Solvency
Increasing vaccines alone doesn’t solve – Covid proves.
Iain Macleod, 2-10-2021, [Iain MacLeod is the co-founder and CEO of Aldatu Biosciences and a
research associate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, "Do the math: Vaccines alone won't
get us out of this pandemic- STAT", STAT, https://www.statnews.com/2021/02/10/vaccines-alone-wont-
end-pandemic/ //Weese]
As Covid-19 vaccines are being rolled out across the U.S., Americans seem to be heaving a collective sigh of relief. Yes, it will take months to get
the vaccine to everyone. Yes, there were tremendous gaps in the Trump administration’s plans to distribute the vaccines, including promising
doses that didn’t exist. But it seems as if there is light at the end of the tunnel. As long as we maintain social distancing, keep wearing masks,
and washing our hands, it feels to many as though we can hold on until we get vaccinated. I’m sorry to be writing the words that follow, but
here they are: We can’t vaccinate our way out of this pandemic. And the
myopic focus on achieving herd immunity through
mass vaccination may even make it tougher for America — and the world — to defeat Covid-19. Don’t get me wrong:
Mass vaccination is essential. But herd immunity is a numbers game. It is defined as the point at which community spread of a
disease stops because unprotected individuals are surrounded by a “herd” of people who are immune to infection, making it difficult, if not
impossible, for infected people to pass on the disease. Many experts have said we will achieve herd immunity when
about 70% of the population is immune to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, either through vaccination or by having
had Covid-19. How do we reach that number? It’s harder than it seems. For starters, while the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines showed
about 95% efficacy in the clinical trials, vaccine effectiveness — how well a vaccine performs under real-world conditions — is likely to be lower
for several reasons. One is that the people
who participate in clinical trials are an imperfect representation of the
whole population. They tend to be healthier, and younger. Real-world factors such as vaccine transportation
and storage can also reduce vaccine effectiveness. Say the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines now being given across the country
achieve 90% effectiveness. Vaccinating 70% of U.S. residents puts us at 63% immunity. So, we’ll need to vaccinate a full 80% of the population
to reach the herd immunity threshold. Additional vaccines are starting to be approved. Some of them have lower efficacy. For instance, the
AstraZeneca vaccine has about 70% efficacy, and Johnson & Johnson has reported that its one-dose vaccine has 66% efficacy. Their real-world
performance could be lower still. If these vaccines become part of the mix in the U.S., actual protection will be lower than the estimated 90%
we’d get from just the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. There
are other barriers to achieving herd immunity. Vaccine
uptake — how many people actually get vaccinated — is far below the level we need, in part because Covid-19 beliefs have
been politicized in the U.S. and a percentage of the population doesn’t even believe the disease is real. In a Kaiser Health News survey
released near the end of January, 13% of Americans said they would “definitely not” get vaccinated, 7% would take the vaccine only if it was
“required,” and another 31% would “wait and see how it’s working” before getting vaccinated. Not encouraging numbers for those hoping for a
quick journey to herd immunity. Even
when ample vaccine supplies are restored — perhaps by President Biden invoking the
Defense Production Act — other factors will further drive down the number of people who get vaccinated .
Eligibility factors currently exclude approximately 25% of U.S. residents from Covid-19 vaccination. The Pfizer vaccine
can be administered only to those age 16 and up; for the Moderna vaccine, it’s those 18 and up. This represents approximately 20% of the
population. Furthermore, although the CDC says that pregnant people may get vaccinated, it stops short of a clear recommendation. The
decision is a “personal choice” left up to individuals and their health care providers. Excluding those currently ineligible for vaccination against
SARS-CoV-2 due to age or other conditions leaves 75%
of Americans with no restrictions on vaccination. Factoring in
the 13% of Americans
who definitely don’t want the vaccine and the 7% who would get it only if it was required means just
49.5% of Americans would have immunity in the near future. If half of those who are in a wait-and-see mode don’t get
vaccinated — another 15% of the population — then we are looking at just 40% vaccine coverage of the currently eligible population, far below
the 70% needed for herd immunity. And that’s even before considering that real-world vaccine effectiveness will be
below clinical trial levels. The young people who aren’t cleared to get the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have proven to be highly
efficient asymptomatic spreaders of Covid-19. Leaving this population unprotected will enable the disease to continue to spread widely. Finally,
we don’t yet know the durability of the immune response to the various vaccines . It may persist. Or it may
wear off, leaving people vulnerable after they’ve been vaccinated and creating conditions for new outbreaks. If my
years of global health work on the HIV/AIDS epidemic has taught me anything, it’s that even the best laid plans can’t
anticipate every challenge. To vaccinate 75% of the U.S. population, approximately 248 million people — that’s nearly 500 million
doses — are needed. And it means we need to be vaccinating nearly 2 million people a day so all of them are immune by the fall of 2021. As I
write this, we’re vaccinating only about 1 million people a day. At that pace, Reuters estimates it would take until April 2022 for 75% of
Americans to receive at least their first vaccine dose.

Vaccine development for future pandemics fails – people get distracted.

Emily Mullin interviewing Kayvon Modjarrad, 6-9-2021, [Emily Mullin is a biology journalist and a
former staff writer for OneZero and associate editor for biomedicine at MIT Tech Review. Kayvon
Modjarrad, MD, PhD is the founding Director of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Branch at the Walter
Reed Army Institute of Research and Associate Professor of Medicine at the Uniformed Services
University, "A ‘Universal’ Coronavirus Vaccine to Prevent the Next Pandemic", Scientific American,
https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/a-universal-coronavirus-vaccine-to-prevent-the-
next-pandemic1/ //Weese]

In the past 20 years alone, three coronaviruses have caused major disease outbreaks. First came the original
SARS virus in 2002. Then, in 2012, MERS was identified. In 2019 SARS-CoV-2 emerged, setting off a global pandemic. Hundreds of other
coronaviruses are known to be circulating in bats and other animals. Scientists have warned that some of them could
emerge in the future and potentially infect people. Our current COVID-19 vaccines were specifically designed for SARS-CoV-2, but
what if a next-generation vaccine could protect against both known and unknown coronaviruses?
Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Md., are working on a so-called universal coronavirus vaccine. Dr.
Kayvon Modjarrad is leading the effort. Kayvon Modjarrad: We’ve developed a vaccine specifically for SARS-CoV-2. But what we’ve seen in our
animal studies is that the immune response that it induces is active against all the variants, as well as other coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-1 that
was seen back in 2002. And this gives us confidence that it can be a platform for the entire coronavirus family. Mullin: Before COVID-19,
Modjarrad and his Army colleague Gordon Joyce were trying to develop a universal vaccine against a group of viruses that includes Lassa virus,
which is similar to Ebola. Modjarrad: And so, when the new coronavirus was identified as a coronavirus, and the sequence was published
January 10 of 2020, that night, Dr. Joyce and I had a late-night conversation about turning, pivoting, our work that had been ongoing for other
viruses toward this coronavirus and toward coronaviruses as a whole. Mullin: Their vaccine is known as a spike ferritin nanoparticle, or SpFN for
short. It combines nanoparticles from a blood protein called ferritin with coronavirus spike proteins. It works by presenting the immune system
with the spike protein in a repetitive, ordered fashion. All coronaviruses have these spike proteins on their surface. But making the vaccine
wasn’t as simple as attaching one protein to another. Modjarrad and his colleagues had to figure out which parts of the spike to attach to which
type of ferritin and how to link the two proteins together. It took months of trying more than 200 different combinations. By June of last year,
the team found one version that succeeded where others had failed. They then tested the experimental vaccine in mice, hamsters and
monkeys. The team also turned to less conventional animals for testing. Working with scientists in India, they injected horses with the vaccine
to learn how strong the immune response was. And they collaborated with Helen Dooley at the University of Maryland to vaccinate sharks—
which make special antibodies. Modjarrad: We saw the same thing over and over again, regardless of which animal species we were testing it
in. Mullin: The vaccine produced a potent immune response against the original SARS-CoV-2 strain and three of its variants. The animals also
developed antibodies against the 2002 SARS virus. The results are encouraging, but animals aren’t people. The Army vaccine
is now being tested in a small, early-stage trial in humans. If it works and is safe, it could lay the foundation for a universal coronavirus vaccine.
Modjarrad: The deadly coronaviruses—like SARS-1, MERS and now SARS-2—have all come from animal populations, and there’s a strong
expectation that this pattern is not going to end anytime soon. So we have to have a platform positioned to anticipate the emergence of new
coronaviruses. Mullin: But Modjarrad says it’s
going to take sustained interest and investment from the government
and pharmaceutical companies to get a vaccine like this ready in time for the next pandemic . Modjarrad:
Our species has a tendency to get distracted. We have a very strong appetite for distraction, and when something is
not in the spotlight, when it’s not a crisis anymore, we tend to forget and move on to something else . So
the biggest challenge is going to be maintaining focus on this next step of developing vaccines that
anticipate pandemics.
 2ac – Doesn’t Solve Global

The counterplan doesn’t solve globally – US vaccines aren’t exported and wouldn’t
meet global demand.
Drew Armstrong, 5-17-2021, [Senior editor for health care at Bloomberg, "When Will the U.S. Share
Its Vaccines?", Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2021-05-17/when-will-the-
u-s-share-its-vaccines //Weese]

When will the U.S. share its vaccines? Why isn’t the
U.S. sharing its extra vaccine doses with the rest of the world?
America led the world in buying up the messenger RNA vaccines that have proven most effective against Covid-19. It’s
now starting to lead the world in not using them. Across the U.S., there are more than 27 million unused
Moderna doses and 35 million from Pfizer and BioNTech,, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention. That’s led to calls by prominent public health voices to pack America’s surplus in dry ice and
ship it to places like India, where the outbreak is still raging. As American vaccinations slow and doses accumulate, the U.S. is
at a health, ethical and diplomatic crossroads. Should it continue to buy and distribute millions of mRNA vaccines a week, targeting people who
are in no hurry to be vaccinated or who are lower-risk? Or should it pare back its orders and free up drugmakers to send more doses to other
countries in need? While it might seem simple to box up the spares and send them out, the reality is far
more complex, according to our latest report on the global vaccine supply. There’s no stockpile of tens of millions of Moderna doses in a
warehouse, ready to go. Most unused U.S. doses are scattered across tens of thousands of locations: state facilities,
local pharmacies, vaccination sites and other locations. Pfizer is already sending some shots manufactured in the U.S. overseas. And there may
be millions more unused doses from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca available to send out in the coming weeks or months; the exact date
is unknown. But with the Biden administration rolling back pandemic guidelines on masking, in part to get vaccine fence-sitters to roll up their
sleeves, there’s
little indication the U.S. strategy of ensuring more-than-ample supply at home will change
any time soon. Unfortunately, even if unused U.S. inoculations were sent abroad, they would likely make
barely a dent in the need. The globe needs billions of vaccines, not millions, and the places that are in crisis now may
burn through their outbreaks before help could arrive.
 AT NB – Politics – Unpopular
Vaccines have become politicized – state legislation proves.
Elizabeth Weise and Kaitlin Lange, 4-27-2021, [Elizabeth Weise is a health enterprise reporter and
national correspondent for USA Today. Kaitlin Lange is a statehouse and politics reporter for the
Indianapolis Star, "State lawmakers opposed to COVID vaccine mandates have filed a flurry of bills this
session. Some worry about the message they send.", No Publication, https://www.usatoday.com/in-
depth/news/health/2021/04/27/lawmakers-over-40-states-seek-ban-covid-19-vaccine-requirements/
7326506002/ //Weese]

INDIANAPOLIS — As the federal government works to make COVID-19 vaccines available to all Americans, lawmakers
in more than 40
states have introduced legislation that would forbid mandates requiring people get vaccinated . Often
advanced by vaccine skeptics and sponsored by Republicans, most seek to prohibit businesses from requiring employees
to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or limit school and day care vaccination entry requirements. Although most of the bills have gained
little support and few, if any, are expected to become law, the
efforts reveal a new alliance between long-time
opponents of vaccines and groups opposed to COVID-19 public health measures, say vaccine advocates. “Starting
at the beginning of the pandemic, the anti-vaxxers did a wonderful job of pivoting from anti-vax to anti-
mask and anti-lockdown, and essentially anti-government,” said Erica DeWald, director of strategic communication with Vaccinate
Your Family, a vaccine advocacy organization founded by former first lady Rosalynn Carter. Sponsors of such measures say it’s a
question of freedom of choice. They object to any requirement a person be vaccinated in order to work or enter venues like sports
arenas or music events, arguing to do so would be government overreach. "It goes back to personal liberties," said Indiana Sen. Dennis Kruse, R-
Auburn. He and others argue businesses or the government shouldn't be telling people what to put in their bodies. A bill he authored would
have prevented companies from mandating any vaccination, including those protecting against COVID-19, due to a person’s religious beliefs or
“conscience.” After Kruse’s bill stalled in committee, Rep. Brad Barrett, R-Richmond, introduced an amendment to a different bill prohibiting
businesses from asking members of the public their vaccination status. He argued the vaccine is too new to be mandated. The amendment was
thrown out without a vote. "This vaccine is still (under) emergency use authorization," Barrett said. "The science is still pending. The vaccine has
really only been in use since December." In an eleventh-hour move last week, Indiana lawmakers inserted language into another unrelated
insurance bill that would forbid the state and municipal governments from requiring "vaccination passports" or proof of COVID-19 vaccination.
“The thought of a state mandating that people take a vaccine that is still experimental according to the manufacturers of the vaccine would be
considered a gross violation of the individual freedom of Hoosiers,” said Rep. John Jacob, R-Indianapolis. Business and medical groups have
opposed attempts to outlaw vaccination requirements, saying they threaten employers’ legal obligation to maintain a safe workplace and could
put workers and customers at risk. In Indiana, the measures were opposed by the state Chamber of Commerce, health care groups and public
health experts. Such opposition hasn't stopped efforts there, or elsewhere. Statehouses in Alabama, Florida, Maryland,
Tennessee and Wisconsin all have bills circulating that would ban businesses or the government from requiring proof of vaccination or
immunity. In Kansas, legislators have packaged together a series of controversial vaccine-related measures. The sweeping bill would prevent
employers from requiring employees be immunized against COVID-19 and would shield businesses from lawsuits in the event an employee
becomes infectious. While no COVID-19 vaccine is currently authorized for children younger than 16, the bill also would ban state health
officials from requiring new vaccinations to attend day care centers and schools. The power instead would be given to the legislature. During a
hearing last week, Kansas Sen. Mark Steffen, R-Hutchinson, said "long-term dangers won't be known for decades" from the COVID-19 vaccine.
He called the shots “experimental.” “Used appropriately, vaccines are a great, great thing. As a physician, I have recommended them to many
individuals,” Steffen said. “I have never once mandated a treatment.” In Missouri, a proposed bill would require immunizations only for public
school children and would make exemptions easier. “We need to rein in our schools and our health departments,” said Rep. Suzie Pollock, R-
Lebanon. Employment concerns The largest number of the bills ban private employers from requiring COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of
employment – an issue coming to the forefront with nearly 54% of American adults vaccinated as of Monday, according to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. U.S. workers appear to be split on whether companies should require vaccinations. Forty-nine percent of
working Americans agreed employers should require proof of vaccination before allowing employees to return to the workplace, according to a
survey this month by public opinion firm Ipsos. “Another sticky issue for employers is how to handle employees who choose to remain
unvaccinated," said Melissa Jezior, president and CEO of Eagle Hill Consulting, which commissioned the survey. "Should they be permitted to
interact in-person with colleagues and customers or be given special allowances to work from home?” One-third of workers said nonvaccinated
employees shouldn’t be allowed to work in-person with co-workers. Such requirements are allowed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission. In December the commission announced employers could require workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as long as they did
not violate the Americans with Disabilities and the Civil Rights acts. The bills being proposed by state lawmakers are partly in response to the
commission's finding. However, overall vaccine requirements haven’t yet become a major employment issue. Prior to the coronavirus, few
businesses outside of hospitals and health care settings required workers to be immunized. Even now only a handful of employers, mostly
nursing homes, have required COVID-19 vaccination. Only one case of an employee refusing to be vaccinated, in New Mexico, has been filed so
far, said Sam Halabi, a professor of law at the University of Missouri and a scholar at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at
Georgetown University. New laws aren't needed, Halabi said, because few employees are fighting new COVID-19 vaccination requirements and
most states already have existing laws that allow people to easily opt out. “If you really don’t want to take a vaccine, your ability to say, ‘I refuse
to on the basis of my conscience’ is really prevalent,” he said. Public
health politicized Legislation allowing people,
especially children, to opt out of vaccination is routinely proposed and often passed in state legislatures,
especially in more conservative states. What’s been different about the surge in COVID-19 vaccine bills is the new
coalition they represent. “This has a whole different feel,” said Diane Peterson, associate director for immunization projects at the
nonprofit Immunization Action Coalition, which works with the CDC to distribute information about vaccines. The anti-vaccine
movement has “melded with the anti-mask, anti-lockdown folks. They’re coming out more as the
mainstream because they've joined forces with other extreme anti-science groups ,” said Becky Christensen of
the SAFE Communities Coalition, which advocates for pro-science legislation and counters anti-vaccination candidates. She emphasized not
everyone with concerns or hesitation about the COVID-19 vaccine is opposed to vaccination in general. “We're talking about a lot of people that
are truly hesitant right now versus people that are outside of a capitol with a bullhorn saying, 'Vaccines are going to kill your children.'” As
common as the vaccination bills have been this legislative session, none has so far passed and few are expected to, said Jennifer Laudano,
senior director of communications and community engagement at the National Academy for State Health Policy. “Legislative sessions are
ending, so a lot of these bills will die when they adjourn,” said Laudano, whose nonpartisan, nonprofit group supports states in developing
health policies. Had they passed, they almost certainly would have been upheld by the courts, said Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, a professor of law at
the University of California Hastings College of Law and an expert on policy responses to vaccination questions. States have wide latitude to
regulate businesses, though these bills run counter to most such regulations, she said. “While we have a long history of states regulating
business, it’s usually regulation to improve the public health, not to undermine it,” said Reiss. Those who support vaccination say even if
none of the bills passes, the legislation allows dangerous mistruths to be repeated . On Thursday, during a debate
on the Montana Senate floor, Republican Sen. Keith Regier cited the false claim that computer chips are being inserted with vaccines. In a local
television interview on April 5, New Jersey state Sen. Mike Testa, a Republican, said the coronavirus vaccines don’t prevent COVID-19 or keep it
from spreading. He also said that COVID-19 had a 99.8% survival rate. None of these statements is true. Among unvaccinated people who’ve
tested positive for the coronavirus, about 20% will end up with severe disease, 5% will end up in intensive care and between 1% and 2% will die,
according to CDC data. Of the first 75 million Americans to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, only 5,800 had breakthrough infections. Of
those, 74 died. Clips
of false statements are frequently shared on social media by anti-vaccine groups and
used to promote vaccine hesitancy. “Elected officials are in a position of trust and they're validating
people's fears,” said Christensen of the SAFE Communities Coalition. “They’re increasing mistrust in public health.”

Vaccines are a hyper-partisan issue.

Arthur Allen, 4-16-2019, [health care reporter at Politico, "Republicans reject Democratic attempts to
tighten vaccine laws", POLITICO, https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/16/republican-reject-
democrat-vaccines-1361277 //Weese]

Most Republicans are rejecting Democrat-led state bills to tighten childhood immunization laws in the midst
of the worst measles outbreak in two decades, alarming public health experts who fear the nation could become as
divided over vaccines as it is over global warming. Democrats in six states — Colorado, Arizona, New Jersey,
Washington, New York and Maine — have authored or co-sponsored bills to make it harder for parents to avoid
vaccinating their school-age children, and mostly faced GOP opposition. Meanwhile in West Virginia and Mississippi,
states with some of the nation’s strictest vaccination laws, Republican lawmakers have introduced measures to expand
vaccine exemptions, although it’s not yet clear how much traction they have. In Washington state, which has one of the biggest measles
outbreaks, a bill in the state Senate to narrow vaccine exemptions passed through the health committee without the support of a single
Republican. The same thing happened in legislative committees in Colorado and Maine over the past week. All states have mandatory
vaccination laws, but they vary in how liberally they dispense exemptions on religious or philosophical grounds. That’s getting scrutiny as
measles spreads. Democratspresent bills tightening the loopholes as science-based and necessary to fight
disease, while sometimes demeaning their foes as misguided or selfish “anti-vaxxers.“ Republicans portray
themselves as equally enthusiastic about the life-saving virtues of vaccines, but many are loath to diminish the right of parental control over
their children’s bodies, and yield that power to the government. Of course there are vaccine skeptics on the left, too, Robert Kennedy Jr. being
the most prominent example. But to date, their influence isn’t as strong in state legislatures. Fed by major epidemics in Israel and in Europe,
measles has punctured the U.S. barrier of immunity at multiple points of entry in what’s shaping up to be the worst year for the disease since
1993, with 555 cases through early April. Outbreaks in six states include hundreds of cases in ultra-Orthodox communities in Brooklyn and
Rockland County, N.Y. And the numbers are growing. “What if God forbid someone dies?” said Jeff Dinowitz, a Bronx assemblyman whose bill
to limit religious exemptions has nine Democratic co-sponsors — but no Republican backers — in the New York Assembly. Andrew Raia, ranking
Republican on the New York Assembly’s health committee, said he wouldn't support the bill. While not totally convinced by constituents who
link their children’s autism on vaccines, and unaware of any real religious injunction against vaccination, he said, “I’m not a religious leader, and
I’m not a scientist either, so it’s my job to weigh both sides.” The political struggle over vaccination is complicated by the fact that President
Donald Trump and two of his Republican primary foes, Sen. Rand
Paul (R-KY) an ophthalmologist, and Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon
who is now HUD secretary, both voiced support for disproven theories linking vaccine to autism during a 2016 debate.
Just last month, Paul said he had his own children vaccinated but railed against government mandates to do so. Since becoming president,
Trump has dropped the subject and scrapped a plan to create a commission led by Kennedy Jr. to investigate a supposed coverup of vaccine’s
supposed harms by public health officials. But officials worry they are “three Trump tweets away” from an even more polarized situation, noted
MIT political scientist Adam Berinsky, who has studied communication around politicized public health and scientific issues. In
Texas, the
Tea Party and related groups created an anti-vax PAC in 2015. It hasn’t yet gotten its chosen candidates elected, but the
very existence of a vaccine-oriented political action committee shows the political salience is growing .
Influential voices on the right, including Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones, have all raised suspicions
about vaccines. “There’s a credulity gap between the parties in regard to science that wasn’t there 25
years ago,” Berinsky said. And Trump could easily inflame the vaccine skepticism, should he weigh in. For a large share of the highly
polarized U.S. population, “at the end of the day it’s not the arguments people are making, but who is making them,” Berinksy said. To be sure,
Republicans have traditionally backed vaccines as a parental responsibility. And although Sen. Paul opposes mandatory vaccination, other GOP
members of Congress — including Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Reps. Phil Roe (R-TN) Michael Burgess, (R-TX) and Rep. Brad Wenstrup R-OH),
who are all doctors — strongly backed vaccination in statements to POLITICO, while stopping short of supporting the removal of religious or
philosophical exemptions. Cassidy has come out strongly for vaccination as a requirement for school attendance, and has publicly sparred with
Paul. And Democrats
aren’t always in favor of tightening exemptions. In New York’s Democratic-controlled
Assembly, certain members of the party have been key in blocking such laws . A century of vaccination laws has
shown that states with the strictest ones have lower burdens of vaccine-preventable disease. Scourges including smallpox, polio and diphtheria
have been eliminated. Rules generally get tighter following big outbreaks of disease, and groups like the American Medical Association and the
American Academy of Pediatrics have used the measles outbreak to push for an end to state laws that allow people to refuse vaccination of
their kids on religious or philosophical grounds. In 1972, during a measles epidemic in Los Angeles, public health authorities kept 50,000
children out of school until their parents could prove they were vaccinated. The success of that effort led to a nationwide push for stricter laws
and more enforcement. After 89 people, mostly children, died in a 1990 measles epidemic, millions of dollars were poured into expanding
vaccine availability for the poor, and in 2000, the disease stopped circulating in the United States. Since then, every case has been linked to
visitors from overseas — although the virus has then spread here among the growing pockets of vaccine shunners. Yet even Walter Orenstein, a
field marshal in the earlier crackdowns who headed CDC’s immunization branch from 1993 to 2004, isn’t sure that legislation against all non-
medical exemptions is the way to go. “In my heart, and from a purely medical point of view, I agree with it,” said Orenstein, who now teaches at
Emory University. “I’m a little worried it will backfire.” Experts differ on the gravity of the political polarization. Dan Salmon, a vaccinologist at
Johns Hopkins's Bloomberg School of Public Health, notes that the only vaccine bills that have passed in legislatures in recent years — notably a
2015 law eliminating philosophical exemptions in California — have tightened, rather than loosened restrictions. “I don’t think this is a partisan
issue,” Salmon insists. But research
by Neal Goldstein of Drexel University's public health school suggests the
issue of vaccine mandates has indeed entered a hyper-partisan landscape . As a result, he said, it may be
wise to avoid legislation when possible to avoid opening more wounds. Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at the
University of Michigan, said, “My concern is that tightening requirements through the political process risks politicizing an issue that we can't
allow to be politicized if we're going to maintain public health."
Warming CP – Sunshades
Negative
 1nc CP Shell
The United States federal government should establish a program to cover 4.5 million
square kilometers around the L1 Lagrange point with 16 trillion structures, one foot in
diameter, of one micron-thick glass mirrors.

A sunshade at the L1 lagrange point solves warming

Siegel 20 (Ethan Siegel, theoretical astrophysics and science writer, former professor at Lewis and
Clark, B.A. in physics from Northwestern University, Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Florida,
“Ask Ethan: Could We Just Build A 'Space Sunshade' To Counteract Global Warming?,” 1-4-20, Forbes,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/01/04/ask-ethan-could-we-just-build-a-space-
shade-to-counteract-global-warming/?sh=688381ce43bc, sohan)
It's 2020, and not only is the Earth warmer than it has been in over 100,000 years, but the concentration of greenhouse gases that drives this
warming continues to increase unabated. If we want to cool the Earth down, perhaps
it's time to look beyond simply
advocating for clean, green energy and an end to reliance on fossil fuels. Perhaps, instead, we should be thinking
about geoengineering solutions, like going to space and intercepting some of the Sun's light before it ever reaches us. That's Dan Goerke's idea,
as he asks: [A]s a fan of terraforming options in the solar system, especially Mars, I thought that I would leverage my knowledge to assuage the
fears of innocents. In this case, I thought to myself "If global warming is such a critical issue, why don't we do something 'cheap'
and 'simple' like building a solar shade at a Lagrange point?" It's a clever idea with a lot of potential. Let's take a closer
look. Earth energy budget diagram, with incoming and outgoing radiation (values are shown in W/m^2).... [+] Satellite instruments (CERES)
measure the reflected solar, aend emitted infrared radiation fluxes. The energy balance determines Earth's climate. Earth energy budget
diagram, with incoming and outgoing radiation (values are shown in W/m^2).... [+] NASA The first step is to understand why Earth's
temperature is what it is. You might think that it's the Sun that gives us our warmth, but that's only mostly correct. If you were to apply the
most straightforward method for estimating Earth's average temperature, you would: determine the total average solar irrandiance produced
by the Sun, measure the Earth-Sun distance to determine the amount of sunlight arriving at Earth, figure out the albedo, or reflectivity, of the
Earth in order to determine how much energy is absorbed vs. reflected, and then put all of these components together to calculate Earth's
average temperature. That calculation is pretty straightforward from a physics perspective, and gives an answer of 255 K, which works out to
either -18 °C or 0 °F in more familiar units. Although various components of the Earth's surface display huge variable ranges in the amount of...
[+] light they absorb or reflect, the global average reflectance/absorption of Earth, known as albedo, has remained constant at ~31%. Although
various components of the Earth's surface display huge variable ranges in the amount of... [+] KEN GOULD, NEW YORK STATE REGENTS EARTH
SCIENCE This value, unfortunately, doesn't even come close to matching reality. The mean temperature of Earth is much warmer than that —
by 33 °C or 59 °F, in familiar terms — and it's for reasons that have nothing to do with the Sun at all. Instead, this extra bump in temperature is
due to the insulating effects of Earth's atmosphere, which doesn't just reflect or transmit incoming radiation from the Sun, but outgoing
radiation emanating from Earth's surface. Without an atmosphere, sunlight comes in, gets either reflected or absorbed, and then the absorbed
heat gets re-radiated as infrared light. But with an atmosphere, some of that infrared
light gets absorbed or re-reflected back
down to Earth's surface, particularly due to the presence of water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane. All
three of these gases act like a blanket for the entire planet: they restrict the ability of Earth's heat to escape
into space. The concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere can be determined from both ice core... [+] measurements, which
easily go back hundreds of thousands of years, and by atmospheric monitoring stations, like those atop Mauna Loa. The increase in atmospheric
CO2 since the mid-1700s is staggering, and continues unabated. The concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere can be determined
from both ice core... [+] NASA / NOAA Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, humanity has caused Earth's carbon dioxide concentration to
skyrocket; it is currently just over 50% higher than it was in the mid-18th century. While many other complex effects are also at play in
determining Earth's temperature, these two basic ones — the Sun's energy arriving at Earth and the Earth's ability to retain it due (mostly) to its
atmosphere — are by far the most important. For more than 40 years, scientists have understood that human-caused increased concentrations
of greenhouse gases are what's driving global warming and climate change, but efforts to curtail these emissions have not been successful. It's
now 2020, and our collective climate inaction is leading many to consider geoengineering solutions. While most geoengineering ideas involve
altering Earth's atmosphere or surface, the option with the least risk is what Dan proposes: to intercept a portion of the Sun's light before it
ever arrives on Earth. Normally, structures like IKAROS, shown here, are viewed as potential sails in space. However, if a... [+] large-area object
were placed between the Earth and the Sun, it could reduce the total irradiance received at the top of our atmosphere, potentially combating
global warming. The simplest
way to do this is to launch something up into space, far from Earth but in
between our planet and the Sun, that prevents a portion of the incoming sunlight from impacting the
Earth. With a lower solar irradiance on our world, temperatures can be controlled, even with the
currently elevated (and still rising) greenhouse gas concentrations. Sure, Earth's atmosphere will continue
to trap more heat as time goes on, acting like a progressively thicker and thicker blanket as our
greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated. But just as you need more/thicker blankets to maintain the same comfortable
temperature when the ambient temperature is colder, it stands to reason that if we know what the blanket situation is
but can control the ambient temperature, maybe we should. Solar eclipses are possible on Earth, and occur whenever
the Moon aligns with the Earth-Sun plane... [+] during a new Moon. This is perhaps the most famous instance of an astronomical object
blocking sunlight from reaching Earth. However, an object could be either smaller or more distant, where it would cast no shadow onto our
planet, yet still it would reduce the amount of sunlight striking our world. If
we wanted to completely counteract the
cumulative effects of human-caused global warming to date, we'd only need to block out approximately
2% of the Sun's light that would normally arrive at Earth on a continuous basis. While that sounds like (and, in
actuality, is) an enormous amount of energy, there's some help that the Universe gives us — for free — in implementing either a blocking or
deflecting of sunlight as a climate solution. In
between the Earth and the Sun, there's a gravitationally quasi-stable
point where the combined gravitational forces of the Earth and the Sun cause any object located there
to remain at the same relative Earth-Sun position all year round: a Lagrange point. While there are 5 total
Lagrange points in practice, the L1 point is most interesting, as an object placed at L1 will always remain between
the Earth and Sun, intercepting a portion of the emitted sunlight that would otherwise arrive at Earth. A
contour plot of the effective potential of the Earth-Sun system. Objects can be in a stable,... [+] lunar-like orbit around the Earth or a quasi-
stable orbit leading-or-trailing (or alternating between both both) the Earth. The L1, L2, and L3 points are points of unstable equilibrium, but an
object in orbit around the L4 or L5 point can remain stable indefinitely. A contour plot of the effective potential of the Earth-Sun system.
Objects can be in a stable,... [+] NASA The physical location of L1 is quite distant: 1,500,000 kilometers away from the Earth. This is
approximately four times the average Earth-Moon distance, meaning you'd need a physical object larger than the size of our planet to cast a
shadow on Earth and block out the Sun's light completely. But even
a series of small objects that either blocked or
deflected the incoming sunlight, so long as the total reduction added up to 2%, would do the job . How
practical is this? In order to reduce the sunlight we receive at Earth's surface by 2%, we'd have to stop approximately 2% of the sunlight headed
towards Earth at or near the L1 Lagrange point. That corresponds to about 1 million square kilometers, or an area comparable to the disk of the
full Moon: an enormous amount to cover. However, there are two brilliant ideas that could accomplish exactly this. This graphic shows an
illustration of Angel's 2 foot-diameter flyers at L1. They are transparent,... [+] but blur out transmitted light into a donut, as shown for the
background stars. The transmitted sunlight is also spread out, so it misses the Earth. This way of removing the light avoids radiation pressure,
which would otherwise degrade the L1 orbit quite rapidly. This graphic shows an illustration of Angel's 2 foot-diameter flyers at L1. They are
transparent,... [+] UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA / STEWARD OBSERVATORY 1.) Place an enormous constellation of small
spacecrafts at L1. Proposed by astronomer Roger Angel, an array of lightweight, thin circles
approximately 1 foot (30 cm) in radius could significantly reduce the amount of sunlight reaching Earth,
if there were enough of them. Instead of reflecting light like a mirror (where they'd experience significant radiation pressure) or
absorbing the sunlight directly (which would degrade the quasi-stable orbit at L1), these circles would simply blur any sunlight
that was transmitted through it. Most of the transmitted light would then miss the Earth, reducing the
total irradiance proportionally. The big downside is that we'd need a lot of them: 16 trillion, to be specific, to achieve the reduction
that we'd want, which would require covering 4.5 million square kilometers (4.5 × 1012 m2). However, if we wanted to require less surface
area, we could go with an alternate proposal. This illustration, with wildly incorrect distance scales, shows the principle of a space lens. The...
[+] basic function of a space lens is to mitigate global warming, refracting sunlight away from the Earth. The actual lens needed would be
smaller and thinner than what's shown here, and could be accomplished with a large array of small lenses instead of one enormous one. This
illustration, with wildly incorrect distance scales, shows the principle of a space lens. The... [+] MIKAEL HÄGGSTRÖM / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
2.) Place a large space lens (or a series of smaller lenses) in orbit at L1. Proposed way back in 1989 by James Early, a
device as simple as a glass shield a few millimeters thick could act as a lens, which would diffuse a large
amount of sunlight away from the Earth. Because of how efficiently lenses can cause the Sun's parallel
rays to diverge (or converge for a brief while and then diverge), only about 1 million square kilometers (1 × 1012 m2) of
coverage would do the job. It wouldn't have to be one single lens, either, as an array of smaller space lenses could accomplish
the same goal. The smaller the lenses, the more of them you'd need, but it's a low-risk, high-reward option, as the danger to Earth from
anything going awry is practically nil. The very first launch of the Falcon Heavy, on February 6, 2018, was a tremendous success. The rocket... [+]
reached low-Earth-orbit, deployed its payload successfully, and the main boosters returned to Cape Kennedy, where they landed successfully.
The promise of a reusable heavy-lift vehicle is now a reality, and could lower launch costs to ~$1000/pound. As costs continue to drop,
extensive space infrastructure becomes a more realistic possibility. The very first launch of the Falcon Heavy, on February 6, 2018, was a
tremendous success. The rocket... [+] JIM WATSON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES However, both of these potential solutions have some drawbacks:
they're very expensive and the solution is temporary. We have experience launching objects to L1, as the majority of our Sun-observing
satellites are located there. But it's very difficult to send large quantities of mass to space, and that's what would be required here. If we
considered the lighter proposal of a series of thin film circles, with each one just 1/5000th of an inch this and weighing just 1 gram, that would
still add up to ~20 million tonnes of mass. With present-day launch costs, we'd be spending trillions of dollars to launch an array to L1. There
are reasons to hope that as reusable launch technology becomes more reliable, this might decrease launch costs to under a trillion by the end
of the 2020s, making it more feasible than many of the current proposals to combat climate change terrestrially. Once we get these spacecraft
to L1, however, there's another problem: their orbits will decay. NASA conceived of a Solar Power Satellite back in the 1970s. If a series of solar
power satellites... [+] were placed at L1, they could not only block some of the sunlight, but could provide usable power for other purposes. L1,
however, is not a stable point, and satellites placed there must either be continuously boosted or will see their orbits chaotically decay. NASA
conceived of a Solar Power Satellite back in the 1970s. If a series of solar power satellites... [+] NASA Whereas satellites launched to L4 or L5 will
be in stable orbits that can last for aeons, satellites launched to L1, L2 or L3 are in quasi-stable orbits. Without any intervention, even with ideal
orbital insertion, they will drift away and out of their ideal positions on timescales of just a few years. The only way to maintain them is to
either: boost
them, which requires outfitting them with self-propulsion technologies, service them,
requiring maintenance launches to go up and re-adjust their orbits, or to simply replace them , meaning that
we'd need to continuously launch new ones to replace the ones that drift away. It would be a remarkable feat if we could counteract global
climate change with a one-time investment in space, but due to the way gravitation works, even the idea of blocking sunlight before it arrives
will require enormous ongoing investments in maintenance. At an average warming rate of 0.07º C per decade for as long as temperature
records exist, the... [+] Earth's temperature has not only increased, but continues to increase without any relief in sight. Unless we significantly
and rapidly curtail our emissions of greenhouse gases, we may be forced to adopt geoengineering solutions to climate change. At an average
warming rate of 0.07º C per decade for as long as temperature records exist, the... [+] NOAA NATIONAL CENTERS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL
INFORMATION, CLIMATE AT A GLANCE: GLOBAL TIME SERIES And yet still, for all of it, this might be the most economical solution to
the problem of global warming. As launch costs continue to drop, as we get better at placing our satellites in their ideal orbits on
the first try, and as we develop artificial intelligence and new in-space technologies like ion drives and solar sails, we could conceivably
mitigate the ill effects of global warming for just a few trillion dollars per decade. Moreover, the solution of
intercepting and deflecting incoming sunlight is the one geoengineering idea that would have no long-term negative
environmental effects for Earth. Unlike adding chemicals to the atmosphere, strategically injecting particulates or cloud nucleation
sites into the skies or oceans, or placing satellites in low-Earth orbit, this won't alter the Earth itself, just the incoming sunlight before it arrives.
As the planet continues to warm and greenhouse gas levels continue to rise, many are lamenting the lack of effective strategies to combat the
effects of climate change. While ocean acidification and other problems arising from the increased greenhouse gases won't be helped, a
solution to the warming problem may lie with a Space Sunshade, an idea whose costs are literally astronomical but continue to drop with time.
The longer we wait to act, the more compelling the case becomes for this unique geoengineering solution.
 2nc Solves
Sunshades solve warming – backed by NASA, the EU, and the IPCC.
Zaria Gorvett, 4-26-2016, [senior journalist at BBC Future, "How a giant space umbrella could stop
global warming", BBC Future, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160425-how-a-giant-space-
umbrella-could-stop-global-warming //Weese]

The race to find a solution to a rapidly warming world is one of the most pressing challenges facing our planet. One proposal to try to
halt this warming is literally out-of-this-world: a giant, space-based sunshade. We’re already modifying our climate by
accident, so why not do it by deliberate geoengineering? It’s a radical idea, and it just might just work. Reducing the amount of
light reaching our planet could cool the Earth quickly, even with rising carbon dioxide levels. While the asteroid which
helped wipe out the dinosaurs blocked out 90% of the Sun’s rays, we would need to divert just 2-4%, it's believed, to take the
Earth back to its pre-industrial climate. Space sunshades have support in high places, from the Royal
Society to Nasa, to the European Union. It’s even roused the interest of the most respected authority on global warming, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). By far the greatest challenge is getting the sunshade into outer space The concept may be
increasingly mainstream, but how we’d do it sounds more far-fetched. To uniformly cool the planet in a system that’s always on the move, the
shade would be installed in an area of outer space that’s balanced between the gravity of the Earth and
the Sun – the L1 point – about a million miles away. First conceived by engineer James Early in 1989, the original design was a vast,
2,000 km-wide glass shield – a structure so heavy, it would need to be constructed on the Moon. More recent suggestions include clouds of
Moon dust, 55,000 wire-mesh mirrors or a planet-girdling ring of tiny umbrellas. And just when you thought they couldn’t get more ambitious:
how about moving the Earth further away from the sun, with an explosion equivalent to five thousand million million hydrogen bombs. By far
the greatest challenge is getting the sunshade into outer space. It currently costs at least $10,000 (£6,930) to launch a pound of payload into
orbit, and we haven’t put a man on the Moon since 1972. To be a viable option, the technology would need to be wafer-light and it would have
to be assembled here on Earth. Astronomer Roger Angel believes he has the answer: 16 trillion flying space robots. Each would
weigh about a gram – the same as a large butterfly – and deflect sunlight with a transparent film pierced with tiny
holes. To keep the burden low, the lenses would be less than a hundredth of the thickness of a human hair. “You can’t stop sunlight with
anything thinner than that,” he says. The robots would steer themselves into orbit by solar-powered ion
propulsion, a technology already used by the European Space Agency's Smart-1 Moon orbiter , to form a
cylindrical cloud 60,000-miles wide. After that they’d need regular nudges from ‘shepherd dog satellites’ to stop them
crashing into each other or being blown off course by the sunlight they’re deflecting . “If you leave them alone
they’ll drift off and eventually fall back to Earth,” he says.

A space sunshade solves heating effects.

Janice Karin, 2020, [freelance reporter with a B.A. and an M.S. in Physics, "Space Sunshade to Reduce
Global Warming", TFOT, https://thefutureofthings.com/6253-space-sunshade-to-reduce-global-
warming/ //Weese]

Researchers at the University of Arizona are developing an ambitious spacesunshade system that could reduce the sunlight
reaching the Earth by 2%, enough to balance the heating effects of the increasing amounts of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere. Composed of trillions of miniature spacecraft, this sunshade would form a
cylindrical cloud with half of the diameter of the Earth and a length about ten times longer than that located in an L1 orbit.
Anything orbiting at this location remains interposed directly between the Sun and the Earth, allowing
the shade to constantly filter the sunlight reaching our planet. Each individual piece of the sunshade would be
made from a thin film pierced with holes imprinted onto a one micron thick plate of glass , be a mere two feet
in diameter, and weigh only a gram. Microelectromechanical (MEMS) mirrors would act as tiny sails, aiding in positioning
and ensuring that the system as a whole filters out the projected levels of sunlight . The L1 orbit is not completely
stable, so minor corrections controlled by these mirrors will be necessary to maintain the sunshade over time.
Despite the small size and weight of the individual components, the sunshade as a whole adds up to approximately 20 million tons; placing that
much mass in orbit using traditional chemical rockets would be prohibitively expensive, so alternative launch methods are a necessary element
of the project as a whole. Project director Roger
Angel proposes to solve the launch problem by using
electromagnetic rocket launchers developed at Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Even with 20 such
launchers, it would take ten years of launching stacks of rockets every five minutes to fully deploy the sunshade system. Once launched out of
Earth orbit, the stacks of components would be steered to L1 orbit using solar powered ion propulsion, the same electromagnetic propulsion
method currently used in several NASA and ESA projects.

It's the sanest and least risky option for combatting warming.
Ethan Siegel, 6-9-2018, [theoretical astrophysics and science writer, former professor at Lewis and
Clark, B.A. in physics from Northwestern University, Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Florida,
"Ask Ethan: Can We Build A Sun Screen To Combat Global Climate Change?", Medium,
https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/ask-ethan-can-we-build-a-sun-screen-to-combat-global-
climate-change-c6399f279ef //Weese]

[W]hy don’t we evaluate building a “sun screen” in space to alter the amount of light (energy) earth
receives? Everybody who did feel a total eclipse knows temperature goes down and light dims. So the idea is to build
something that would stay between us and sun all year long… This is one of the most ambitious, but also one of the sanest, options
we could possibly consider when it comes to combatting global climate change . In general, it’s well-understood
that increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are driving global warming, which in turn is driving the Earth’s climate
and weather patterns to change in a number of ways. Most (but not all) of these ways are generally recognized as bad for the majority of
humans on this world, and so there is a global movement underway to combat these changes. If the most popular solution, to return Earth’s
atmospheric gas concentrations to pre-industrial revolution levels, isn’t chosen, the only options left to humanity will be to either adapt to the
changes, or to attempt geoengineering solutions. This final option, of geoengineering, is not without risk. Most of the solutions
involve altering Earth’s surface or atmosphere further, with largely unknown, unpredictable consequences. Of all the geoengineering
options, however, the least risky is the one put forth by Tony: to fly something in space, far from Earth, to
simply block a portion of the Sun’s light. With less solar irradiance, the temperatures can be controlled, even if
the atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations continue to rise. If we wanted to completely counteract
the effects of all the global warming that has happened since the industrial revolution, we’d have to block out
approximately 2% of the Sun’s light on a continuous basis. But this is easier, at least theoretically, than you
might intuit. There’s a gravitationally quasi-stable point, in between the Earth and the Sun, which will always effectively dim the light from
the Sun. Known as the L1 Lagrange point, it’s the ideal location for a satellite that you wish to remain directly
between the Earth and the Sun. As the Earth orbits the Sun, an object at L1 will constantly remain in between
the Earth and Sun, never straying at any point throughout the year. Its physical location is in interplanetary space:
approximately 1,500,000 kilometers closer to the Sun than the Earth is. At that distance, even an Earth-sized object wouldn’t cast a shadow on
our planet, as its shadow-cone would come to an end well before it reached our world. But a single shade, or a series of smaller
shades, would effectively block enough light to reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth . To
achieve the reduction we’d want to counteract global warming, i.e., to reduce the received solar irradiance by 2%,
we’d need to cover a surface area of 4.5 million square kilometers at the L1 Lagrange point . That’s the
equivalent of an object that takes up half the surface area of the Moon. But unlike the Moon, we could divide that up into as
many smaller components as necessary. One proposal, put forth by University of Arizona astronomer Rogel Angel,
propsed flying a constellation of small spacecrafts at the L1 Lagrange point. Instead of a large, heavy structure, an
array of approximately 16 trillion structures, each one a thin circle about 30 centimeters (one foot) in
radius, could block enough light to provide us with exactly the reduction of irradiance that we require .
It wouldn’t create a shadow anywhere on Earth, but would rather reduce the total amount of sunlight
striking the entire surface of our planet by an even amount, similar to an enormous array of tiny sunspots placed on the
surface of the Sun.
 2nc Solves – AT Expensive
It’s cheaper than adaptation
Leahy 16 - diverse career has included work for The Walt Disney Company, NASA, the Department of
Defense, Nissan, a number of commercial space companies, small businesses, nonprofits, as well as the
Science Cheerleaders (Bart, “RESEARCHERS INVESTIGATING LARGE SUNSHADES TO COMBAT GLOBAL
WARMING,” Space Flight Insider, http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missions/commercial/researchers-
investigating-large-sunshades-combat-global-warming/)

Obviously, a project as ambitious as HELIOS will be difficult and expensive, so the group’s initial priority will be
financing. This means attracting the interest of venture capitalists or angel investors as well as getting their ideas into the public consciousness
(full disclosure: the author of this article is the HELIOS team’s outreach consultant). Technically, the initial steps for developing HELIOS will
include defining the system architecture, defining its physical characteristics, and determining its actual environmental performance. The team
will also need to do a due-diligence review on the system. For example, they must determine the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the major
system components and develop a roadmap for development and TRL advancement. Along the way, the team will develop multiple
deployment strategies for the sunshade, looking for incremental, affordable ways to do it. Once the high-level strategizing is complete, the
HELIOS team will focus on developing proof-of-concept technologies, such as packaging and deployment mechanisms for large-scale solar sails.
And – of interest to any investors – they need to provide a solid estimate of benefits, implementation costs, and timeline. How much would the
overall system cost? That’s one of the things the initial architecture studies will determine. “ Odds
are, with current lift methods,
the cost would be astronomical, though it would probably still be cheaper than moving everybody on the seacoasts
50 miles inland as sea levels rise,” said HELIOS team member Ken Roy.

Sunshades don’t have negative effects and are the cheapest option.
Ethan Siegel, 6-9-2018, [theoretical astrophysics and science writer, former professor at Lewis and
Clark, B.A. in physics from Northwestern University, Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Florida,
"Ask Ethan: Can We Build A Sun Screen To Combat Global Climate Change?", Medium,
https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/ask-ethan-can-we-build-a-sun-screen-to-combat-global-
climate-change-c6399f279ef //Weese]

The big advantage of blocking the incoming sunlight from afar is that there’s no risk of long-term
negative effects on planet Earth from geoengineering solutions . Other ideas, such as large-scale modification of
the atmosphere, a constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit, or the injection of cloud-forming materials or reflective particulates into the
skies or oceans, have potentially hazardous unforeseen consequences. But the big problems of costs and long-term
instability, right now, are the largest barriers to implementing such a solution. In the meantime, the planet continues to warm, CO2 levels
continue to rise, and there are no effective strategies in place to change the course of events. Ideas for a screen like this, usually called a
Space Sunshade, may become our best option. While the cost is prohibitively expensive, it may, in the long run, be the
cheapest option we’re willing to implement. As the years, decades, centuries, and millennia tick by, our descendents will be
dealing with the consequences of our actions or inactions today for generations to come.
 2nc Solves – AT Bad/Turns
Sunshades don’t have negative effects and are the cheapest option.
Ethan Siegel, 6-9-2018, [theoretical astrophysics and science writer, former professor at Lewis and
Clark, B.A. in physics from Northwestern University, Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Florida,
"Ask Ethan: Can We Build A Sun Screen To Combat Global Climate Change?", Medium,
https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/ask-ethan-can-we-build-a-sun-screen-to-combat-global-
climate-change-c6399f279ef //Weese]

The big advantage of blocking the incoming sunlight from afar is that there’s no risk of long-term
negative effects on planet Earth from geoengineering solutions . Other ideas, such as large-scale modification of
the atmosphere, a constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit, or the injection of cloud-forming materials or reflective particulates into the
skies or oceans, have potentially hazardous unforeseen consequences. But the big problems of costs and long-term
instability, right now, are the largest barriers to implementing such a solution. In the meantime, the planet continues to warm, CO2 levels
continue to rise, and there are no effective strategies in place to change the course of events. Ideas for a screen like this, usually called a
Space Sunshade, may become our best option. While the cost is prohibitively expensive, it may, in the long run, be the
cheapest option we’re willing to implement. As the years, decades, centuries, and millennia tick by, our descendents will be
dealing with the consequences of our actions or inactions today for generations to come.
 NB – Politics – Bipartisan
No one opposes the counterplan
Nicholson 15 – PhD, director of the Global Environmental Politics program in the School of
International Service and Assistant Professor of International Relations, (Simon, “STRANGE
BEDFELLOWS: CLIMATE ENGINEERING POLITICS IN THE UNITED STATES,”
https://geoengineeringourclimate.com/2015/04/21/strange-bedfellows-climate-engineering-politics-in-
the-united-states-opinion-article/)

Climate Engineering Subverts Traditional Left-Right Politics

In the United States, positions on climate change have become strong markers of political identity. There
are, in fact, very few stronger indicators. Matthew Nisbet, a political communications scholar, places the current public conversation
in the United States about climate change in the same rarefied category as debates about gun control and taxes, as one among a handful of
issues that most clearly “show two Americas divided along ideological lines.”[1] Indeed, a straightforward way to predict whether a particular
person in the United States supports action in response to climate change, or, for that matter, believes that climate change is a real thing, is to
ask about their political affiliation.[2] Those
who identify as Democrats or political liberals are supposed to, as a matter of political
dogma, believe in climate change and the need for a response; Republicans or political conservatives are supposed to
hold the opposite view. When it comes to climate engineering, though, (and we use the term “climate engineering”
in its broadest sense here, to refer to the full potential set of greenhouse gas removal and albedo modification technologies, since this wide
usage best reflects the muddied state of the conversation in the United States), the
picture is a good deal more complicated.
The left-right divide matters, as we will discuss below, but is also subverted and transgressed in interesting and
important ways. The growing chatter about development and potential deployment of climate
engineering responses is producing curious, and sometimes counter-intuitive, reaction from across the
political spectrum. A few cherry-picked examples give something of the flavor of the entanglements
being produced. For instance, a broad coalition of voices across the left-right spectrum stands opposed to climate engineering, at least in
public rhetoric. Al Gore, liberal champion of climate action, is on record as suggesting that climate engineering, and specifically stratospheric
aerosol injection, is “insane, utterly mad and delusional in the extreme.”[3] Similarly, author and liberal climate activist Bill McKibben routinely
describes any talk of climate engineering as the refuge of those unwilling to shake an addiction to fossil fuels.[4] This broad opposition to
consideration of climate engineering is a stance shared with the preponderance of self-identified American conservatives surveyed in a study
undertaken by Mercer et al., the findings of which suggest that conservatives, as a group, skew towards being “detractors” when asked about
their views on solar radiation management.[5] At
the same time, a general support for consideration of climate
engineering is apparent from interesting quarters. Democratic congressman Bart Gordon, when he was Chairman of the
House Science and Technology Committee, called the only congressional hearings to date on climate engineering,[6] and is
on record as being supportive of development of a research agenda on many climate engineering
technologies.[7] This puts him in uneasy company with Republican political establishment figures like former
Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, who made what he called a conservative case for consideration of stratospheric
aerosol injection, at the height of debate in the United States about a cap and trade bill, in a blog post with the evocative title, “Stop the
Green Pig: Defeat the Boxer-Warner-Lieberman Green Pork Bill Capping American Jobs and Trading America’s Future.”[8] What’s going on?
What’s shaping these odd coalitions and political boundary crossings? One possible answer has been advanced by Australian author Clive
Hamilton. He has suggested that the divide emerging in the United States between those who claim support for a climate engineering response
and those who stand most firmly opposed can best be explained by sharply divergent understandings concerning humanity’s use of technology.
These understandings, says Hamilton, do not track with traditional left-right characterizations. Rather, they reflect worldviews that have their
roots in deeper understandings of humanity’s relationships with the built and the natural worlds. Hamilton draws a distinction between so-
called Prometheans (named for the figure in Greek mythology who wrested fire from the gods) and Soterians (named for the Greek goddess
who represented, in Hamilton’s words, “safety, preservation and deliverance from harm.”)[9] The Prometheans hold “[a] technocratic
rationalist worldview confident of humanity’s ability to control nature,” which stands in sharp contrast to the Soterian worldview, “a humble
outlook suspicious of unnatural technological solutions and the hubris of mastery projects.”[10] So Democratic and Republican Prometheans
may find common ground in support for climate engineering. Another contrasting possibility is that climate
engineering plays to
facets of left-right ideology that stretch beyond traditional conceptions of climate change and what it
suggests in terms of required response. Mercer et al., again, suggest, based on their survey work, that political liberals who stand
opposed to climate engineering may do so out of a desire for the maintenance of naturalism when it comes to addressing climate change and
other expressions of environmental harm,[11] while political conservatives opposed to climate engineering may be motivated by distrust of
government and other powerful institutions that would have most control over a climate engineering response.[12] Or it could be that
liberals who advocate for climate engineering research and potential deployment may do so reluctantly out
of a sense of desperation when it comes to climate change,[13] while conservatives may believe that climate
engineering represents a form of response to climate change that aligns with deep beliefs in the power
of free enterprise and market-driven innovation.[14] In this way, the climate engineering conversation can be seen to
be creating some strange bedfellows, with pockets on the left and right finding themselves arguing for
similar positions, though often for quite different reasons. The result, as Jeff Goodell has put it, is that climate engineering
“scrambles old political alliances and carves out new ideological fault lines.”[15] There is some intuitive
resonance to the kinds of claims advanced by the figures referenced above. They suggest, when taken together,
that climate engineering is a subject that cuts across the traditional left-right divide in important and
profound ways.
Affirmative
 2ac – Doesn’t Solve Warming
Sunshades are unpredictable and exacerbate the effects of warming.
Zaria Gorvett, 4-26-2016, [senior journalist at BBC Future, "How a giant space umbrella could stop
global warming", BBC Future, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160425-how-a-giant-space-
umbrella-could-stop-global-warming //Weese]

With these uncertainties in mind, Dan Lunt of the

University of Bristol, in the UK, and colleagues set up a climate-modelling
study to predict the sunshade’s climatic effects. If you reduce the global temperature all the way back to
pre-industrial, then you tend to over-dry the planet – Ben Kravitz, climate scientist The model included three scenarios: the
pre-industrial world, a ‘greenhouse world’ which has four times the current levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and is 6C warmer, and
‘sunshade world’ with the same high CO2 but the strength of the sun reduced by 4%. That’s around 55 fewer watts per square metre, roughly
the same amount as a light bulb. They found that the sunshade could compensate for the warming in greenhouse world exactly – the
geoengineering was a success. But it wasn’t all good news. Compared with pre-industrial times, the
tropics were 1.5C cooler, while
high latitudes were warmer by 1.5C. Even with a space sunshield, there’d be less sea ice. That’s because the
planet would be shaded evenly. In the tropics, which receive substantially more sunlight than the poles, a 4% reduction amounts to more lost
sunlight. The 'sunshade world' was also drier, with 5% less rainfall on average. “If you reduce the global temperature all the way
back to pre-industrial, then you tend to over-dry the planet. The only way to combat that is to have a little bit of left-over global warming,” says
Ben Kravitz, a climate scientist who wasn’t involved in the study. In the imperfectly engineered world, some countries would get a better deal
than others. The sunshade could protect some areas from flooding, while inflicting droughts on others . “To
get it up there there’d have to be a global effort, but in fact different countries would argue for a very
different strength. There might be all sorts of political intrigue.” Lunt explained. So could a space sunshade stop global
warming? Engineering our way out of climate change could lead to, well, more climate change . Kravitz agrees.
“There are some things we’ll never know, prior to going ahead and doing it. There’s still a lot of work to do before we
understand what geoengineering can and cannot do.”
 2ac – Doesn’t Solve – No Tech
Sunshades fail – the tech doesn’t exist and it’s impossible to get it into space.
Zaria Gorvett, 4-26-2016, [senior journalist at BBC Future, "How a giant space umbrella could stop
global warming", BBC Future, https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160425-how-a-giant-space-
umbrella-could-stop-global-warming //Weese]

By far the
greatest challenge is getting the sunshade into outer space The concept may be increasingly mainstream, but
how we’d do it sounds more far-fetched. To uniformly cool the planet in a system that’s always on the move, the shade would be
installed in an area of outer space that’s balanced between the gravity of the Earth and the Sun – the L1 point – about a million miles away.
First conceived by engineer James Early in 1989, the original design was a vast, 2,000 km-wide glass shield – a structure so heavy, it would need
to be constructed on the Moon. More recent suggestions include clouds of Moon dust, 55,000 wire-mesh mirrors or a planet-girdling ring of
tiny umbrellas. And just when you thought they couldn’t get more ambitious: how about moving the Earth further away from the sun, with an
explosion equivalent to five thousand million million hydrogen bombs. By far the greatest challenge is getting the sunshade into outer space. It
currently costs at least $10,000 (£6,930) to launch a pound of payload into orbit, and we haven’t put a man
on the Moon since 1972. To be a viable option, the technology would need to be wafer-light and it would have to be assembled here
on Earth. Astronomer Roger Angel believes he has the answer: 16 trillion flying space robots . Each would weigh
about a gram – the same as a large butterfly – and deflect sunlight with a transparent film pierced with tiny holes. To keep the burden low, the
lenses would be less than a hundredth of the thickness of a human hair. “You can’t stop sunlight with anything thinner than that,” he says. The
robots would steer themselves into orbit by solar-powered ion propulsion, a technology already used by the European Space Agency's Smart-1
Moon orbiter, to form a cylindrical cloud 60,000-miles wide. After that they’d need regular nudges from ‘shepherd dog satellites’ to stop them
crashing into each other or being blown off course by the sunlight they’re deflecting. “If you leave them alone they’ll drift off and eventually fall
back to Earth,” he says. Electromagnetic cannon In all we’d need to fire 20-million-tonnes-worth into outer space – still
too heavy to be feasible by chemical rocket. Angel’s solution is so outrageous, for years it was thought to be impossible because it
defied the laws of physics: a giant electromagnetic gun embedded in a mountain. The system would accelerate cargo to launch at the
mountain’s summit using a form of electromagnetic energy to convert electricity into thrust. Known as the Lorentz force, it already powers
magnetic levitation, Maglev, trains, and the US Navy’s latest weapon. By side-stepping the need for fuel, the cost of launch may be as low as
$20 (£13.90) per pound, enough to catapult the shade into orbit for just a few trillion dollars. There’s just one problem: the technology
doesn’t yet exist.
 2ac – Doesn’t Solve – Costs
They’re way too expensive – launch and maintenance costs.
Ethan Siegel, 6-9-2018, [theoretical astrophysics and science writer, former professor at Lewis and
Clark, B.A. in physics from Northwestern University, Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Florida,
"Ask Ethan: Can We Build A Sun Screen To Combat Global Climate Change?", Medium,
https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/ask-ethan-can-we-build-a-sun-screen-to-combat-global-
climate-change-c6399f279ef //Weese]

In principle, this sounds like an easy strategy, and potentially a low-risk, high-reward solution to our global warming problem.
But there are two problems with it. Launch costs. To send any object to the L1 Lagrange point is well within the scope of what
humanity’s spaceflight program is capable of. We’ve done it numerous times: it’s where the majority of our Sun-observing satellite missions go.
But even for a series of very thin, very light spacecrafts, the launch costs would be tremendous. If Angel’s
proposal of a transparent, thin film were flown, with each flyer only 1/5000th of an inch thick and weighing no more than a gram, the total
mass required would still add up to 20 million metric tonnes. Even if next-generation launch technologies like the Falcon
Heavy can get costs down to under $1000-per-pound (a factor of 10 improvement over what they presently are), we’re still looking at
hundreds of billions of dollars to launch an array like this. And that’s not even getting to the second problem. Orbital
stability. The L1 Lagrange point is only quasi-stable, meaning that either everything we launch there needs to be
maintained (with rocket boosts) in order to remain in its current orbit, or it will eventually drift away,
ceasing to block the sunlight from reaching Earth. This happens, unfortunately, way too quickly for our
comfort: on the timescales of years-to-decades, depending on how well the initial orbital insertion works. This means, for the
light-blocking approach, we’d need to have an ongoing cost hovering in the tens of billions of dollars per year
just for maintenance launches alone: comparable to NASA’s entire annual budget. And that’s if the launch costs are lowered by
the factor of 10 over what they are today.
 AT NB – Politics – Links
There is strong political opposition to the costs and unnaturalness of the cp
Neeley 2019
Josiah, The Hill, “Geoengineering is one way to fight climate change and cool the planet” February 7,
2019 https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/428968-geoengineering-is-one-way-to-fight-
climate-change-and-cool-the-planet DMR
It is now more than a decade later, and the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions has not been fundamentally altered. Yet, we should not be
too quick to laugh Hansen out of court. His claim was not that the earth would cease to exist in 10 years and that one day only dangerous levels
of global warming would become unavoidable if emissions were not cut, although on the latter point he was right. Under any realistic scenario,
humanity has already committed to pump enough greenhouse gas into the atmosphere to raise global temperatures to levels not seen for
thousands of years. But this is not the end of the story. As the prospects for limiting global warming solely through emissions cuts have
dwindled, scientists are giving more attention to technology that could counteract this, either by sucking carbon dioxide out of the air or by
using heat blocking particles to cancel the warming from trapped heat. Known as geoengineering, these techniques are likely to be the subject
of a major report by the United Nations panel on climate change. Despite
its potential importance, however, geoengineering
has yet to enter the popular consciousness. Some geoengineering ideas sound like something out of science fiction. One
common idea is known as solar radiation management. This proposes spraying particles into the upper atmosphere that will reflect sun rays
and thus have a cooling effect. But as strange as solar radiation management sounds, it has a firm scientific basis. The huge eruption of Mount
Pinatubo sent 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. This resulted in average temperatures dropping by nearly one degree from
1991 to 1993. One advantage of solar radiation management is that it is cheap. Injecting enough particles to stabilize temperatures would be in
the range of a few billion dollars a year, easily within the ability of some developing countries or even wealthy individuals. The flip side of all this
is that solar radiation management would be difficult to control. While it would keep average temperatures constant, the cooling would be
uneven, and there could be unpleasant side effects, many of which are as yet poorly understood. The
“unnaturalness” of this
technology has also raised political opposition. Other geoengineering technology would counteract global warming
by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Some of this technology sounds more politically acceptable in the abstract, even though
many of the same considerations raised against solar radiation management would also apply to them. Various types of carbon removal
technology are also very
costly and may require significant tracts of land to operate at scale. Most of the
opposition to all forms of geoengineering is based on moral hazard. If people knew that there was an
inexpensive way to guard against global warming that did not require costly emissions cuts, why would
they cut emissions at all? Some have even opposed preliminary research on geoengineering on these grounds. This approach is
wrongheaded. Even without geoengineering as part of the conversation, the efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have been small and
lackluster. Governments may promise big emissions reductions in the future, but insofar as these promises have proven costly, they have not
followed through on them.
Water Scarcity CP – Desalination
Negative
 1nc – CP Shell – NSTC
The United States federal government should substantially increase funding and
support to implement the National Science and Technology Council’s
recommendations* for the advancement of desalination technology.

*This is the full list of NSTC recommendations.

Goal 1: Reduce Risk and Streamline Local Planning to Support Desalination
Priority 1: Assess water resources and future needs
Priority 2: Develop desalination tools and best practices
Goal 2: Reduce Technical and Economic Barriers to enable Desalination Technology Usage
Priority 3: Encourage early-stage R&D
Priority 4: Develop small scale modular desalination systems
Priority 5: Advance technologies to reduce ecological impact
Goal 3: Encourage National and International Cooperation to Innovate and Develop Desalination
Technologies
Priority 6: Improve Federal agency coordination
Priority 7: Promote public-private partnerships
Priority 8: Cooperate with international partners

The CP develops substantial capacity for desalination to enhance water security

NSTC 2019
The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is the principal means by which the Executive
Branch coordinates science and technology policy across the diverse entities that make up the Federal
research and development enterprise “COORDINATED STRATEGIC PLAN TO ADVANCE DESALINATION
FOR ENHANCED WATER SECURITY” March 2019 https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=824511 DMR
Forty out of fifty State water managers expect freshwater shortages to occur in their states in the next
10 years. 1 Many of the states and regions with the most severe declines in water availability are also
those expected to have the highest population growth in the coming decade.2 In most cases, increased
water conservation efforts by both utilities and users are the most cost-effective way to reduce demand
and improve water security (the capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate
quantities of acceptable quality water). Beyond conservation, continued development is needed of
technologies that support access to clean, potable water in order to ensure rural and urban prosperity,
national and economic security, and health for all Americans. This Coordinated Strategic Plan to
Advance Desalination for Enhanced Water Security presents the challenges and opportunities posed by
the use of desalination technologies as a source of water resources for future needs. This plan responds
to Congressional direction outlined in the 2016 Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation
(WIIN) Act (Public Law 114-322, § 9(b)). In accordance with the WIIN Act, a multi-agency Desalination
Task Force was created to establish desalination priorities, coordinate relevant Federal Agencies,
strengthen research and development (R&D) cooperation with our international partners, and to
promote public-private partnerships in the area of desalination technology. This strategy identifies
three overarching goals to support desalination efforts in the United States. Goals 1 and 2 highlight five
R&D priorities identified by the Task Force to enhance water security. Goal 3 discusses three operational
priorities to encourage international and private sector collaboration: Goal 1: Reduce Risk and
Streamline Local Planning to Support Desalination Priority 1: Assess water resources and future needs
Priority 2: Develop desalination tools and best practices Goal 2: Reduce Technical and Economic
Barriers to enable Desalination Technology Usage Priority 3: Encourage early-stage R&D Priority 4:
Develop small scale modular desalination systems Priority 5: Advance technologies to reduce ecological
impact Goal 3: Encourage National and International Cooperation to Innovate and Develop
Desalination Technologies Priority 6: Improve Federal agency coordination Priority 7: Promote public-
private partnerships Priority 8: Cooperate with international partners The combination of these three
goals provides a framework that could enhance the United States’ capacity and capability to use
desalination to combat the risk of future water scarcity (the lack of fresh water resources to meet water
demand) in both communities and industry.
 1nc – CP Shell – Remove Regs
The United States federal government should simplify and streamline policies to
encourage the development of new desalination plants and water technologies.
The CP solves by removing obstacles to widespread desal development
Cochrane 2016
Daniel, American Legislative Exchange Council, “Government is Giving Desalination a Salty Reception;
Why every state should care” July 6, 2016 https://www.alec.org/article/government-is-giving-
desalination-a-salty-reception-why-every-state-should-care/ DMR
As droughts sweep the nation, leaving economic destruction and growing uncertainty in their wake, new
solutions are desperately needed to alleviate growing water scarcity and ensure access to clean water at
competitive prices.
Ongoing droughts in states like California, New Mexico and Texas have already caused significant
damage to state economies. A UC Davis study pegged economic damage in California at $2.7 billion
during 2015 as a direct result of water shortages. Another study conducted by University College in
London found that a massive drought in the Midwest is having major impacts on other states like
Oklahoma, Louisiana and Kansas.
Desalination technology could play an important role in alleviating water scarcity and providing users
with long-term price stability. If states hope to address the water crises, they must seriously assess
opportunities created by desalination and commit to clearing away barriers that inhibit widespread use
of the technology. While other nations like Saudi Arabia and Israel successfully utilize desalination to
mitigate water shortages, the National Academy of Sciences observed that onerous state and federal
regulations impede the development of new facilities in the U.S.
Many different methods of desalination are available including reverse osmosis designed to make
seawater or brackish water suitable for residential, agricultural and industrial applications. It works by
forcing large quantities of saltwater through layers of superfine membrane to filter out salt and other
dissolved contaminants. Desalinated water can then be treated with chlorine and minerals to match
clean water standards before being delivered to customers.
Large desalination projects are already taking shape in states like California, where Poseidon Water
Corporation recently completed construction of a 1-billion-dollar desalination plant in Carlsbad. The
plant provides 50 million gallons of drinking water to San Diego County residents per day and is the
largest of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, able to cleanse water at $2,131 to $2,367 per acre-foot.
While San Diego water users will see an increase in their water bills of $5 to $7 per month, the cost of
desalinated water is capped and will not increase even if shortages persist. On the heels of the Carlsbad
plant, over a dozen new desalination facilities have been proposed along the California coastline.
States like Florida and Texas have also seen large desalination facilities come on line and are discussing
the possibility of permitting additional plants. The Texas Desalination Association reports that 100 inland
desalination facilities currently provide 138 million gallons of water per day throughout Texas. While this
may sound impressive, it represents less than 4% of the 4 billion gallons of water produced daily by
approximately 12,500 desalination facilities located in 120 different countries. Notably, 60 percent of
these facilities are located in the Middle East where desalinated water accounts for about 70 percent of
the region’s water supply.
Yet, despite the growing need for abundant new sources of clean water, burdensome regulations and
the protracted permitting process continue to discourage needed investments in the American
desalination sector. A recent study by the National Academy of Sciences observed, “desalination costs
found elsewhere in the world may be lower than those that can be realized in the United States because
the permitting and the costs of meeting environmental regulations tend to be higher in the United
States.”
Poseidon Resources spent more than a decade navigating a web of complex federal, state and local red
tape, including numerous lawsuits from environmental groups before construction even began. The
California regulatory process is so cumbersome that many refer to it as “the 800-pound gorilla” involving
state and regional water boards, air boards, environmental reviews and the state Coastal Commission.
Even if a company successfully navigates these barriers it is still required to comply with no fewer than
nine federal statutes, including the Clean Water Act, Rivers and Harbors Act, Clean Drinking Water Act,
Resource Recovery and Conservation Act, Solid Waste Disposal Act, Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, Hazardous Materials Transportation Act, and the Toxic
Substances Control Act.
Under federal law, all desalination projects are required to obtain source water permits, potable water
permits and waste permits prior to construction. Source water (feed water stream) permits address the
location and means of obtaining the source water used by the desalination facility. Potable water
(finished water stream) permits address the use of the finished water produced by the facility. Waste
(concentrate or waste streams) permits address the treatment or discharge of waste streams, including
concentrate, chemical waste from cleaning processes and any other waste associated with the operation
of the facility. All three layers of permitting impose costly environmental reviews and monitoring
requirements that can take years to comply with. The National Academy of Sciences concluded that
“overall, the costs and time involved in permitting processes are significant and, regardless of the
capacity of the facility, the regulatory requirements involved in the process are approximately similar.”
Though water continues to be debated in the political arena, the reality is droughts are lengthening, and
demand for water is growing as populations increase. Solving the water crises requires a comprehensive
approach that embraces technologies like desalination to increase water supply while improving
efficient allocation of existing resources. State governments and federal regulators face a clear choice:
continue down the path of “800-pound gorilla” style regulation, or simplify and streamline policies to
encourage the development of new desalination plants and water technologies.
 1nc – CP Shell – Fund Desal

The United States federal government should substantially increase funding and
support for the development of desalination infrastructure sufficient to resolve water
security.

New innovations allow for the widespread reliance on desalination for water security
TRT World 2021
TRT, Turkish News Agency, citing Sergio Salinas, a professor of Water Supply Engineering at the IHE Delft
Institute and Manish Kumar, a professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental
Engineering at UT Austin, “Is desalination the answer to global freshwater scarcity?” January 25, 2021
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/is-desalination-the-answer-to-global-freshwater-scarcity-43561
DMR
New research has the potential to reduce the costs of desalination, making a life-saving resource more
accessible. But without a shift in the way we think about “theoretically infinite” resources, freshwater access will remain a challenge. “If
climate change mitigation is about energy, adaptation is about water,” writes anthropologist Gokce Gunel. The former aims to curtail the
drivers of climate change, while the latter aims to manage its actual or expected impacts by adjusting social, ecological, and economic systems.
By far, one of the most discussed aspects of climate change is the fate of freshwater, and its accessibility. Many headlines have heralded global
wars over freshwater, and the Dutch government has even funded the development of an online tool that can predict the likelihood of water-
related conflict. Though large-scale international conflict over water is unlikely, the effects of water stress and scarcity are very real. Already,
over 2 billion people on the globe live in countries experiencing high water stress, and two-thirds of the world’s population experiences severe
water scarcity for at least a month during the year. By 2030, 700 million people could be displaced by intense water scarcity. In addition to
drinking water, freshwater is important for agriculture and sanitation; poor water and sanitation facilities lead to health problems for nearly
half of the population in developing countries, and is associated with 80 percent of disease, according to the Global Water Institute. In many
countries, the extraction of renewable resources has perhaps exceeded the natural renewal capacity of aquifers, and this is only expected to
increase because the population is going to increase. By 2050, we will be about 9.7 to 10 billion inhabitants [on earth], which is a huge demand,
not only for the water sector but also for food and energy. [...] And of course with the improving economies in many countries, it will mean that
industries will demand more water. The household level and per capita demand will also increase. Dr. Salinas, IHE Delft It is no surprise then,
that considerable scientific inquiry and international efforts revolve around the question of freshwater access and distribution. Researchers
in the US have recently made a discovery that could make desalination - the process of removing salt
and other impurities from water - 30 to 40 percent more efficient, and therefore potentially cheaper and
more accessible. Since saltwater makes up over 97 percent of the globe’s water supply, desalination, an ancient and reliable method of
freshwater production, and one that can be integrated into existing water systems with minimal health risks, seems like an obvious answer to
the existential question of freshwater access. “What desalination does, with all its problems and its expense is, it creates a local
source of water. So if you're near the ocean or if you have access to groundwater, or if you have access to wastewater, you can create
clean water,” Manish Kumar, a professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at UT Austin, tells TRT World.
There are currently two commonly used methods of desalination: thermal and membrane-based. The first method entails boiling water and
collecting the vapor, while the second, known as reverse osmosis desalination, forces water through a membrane to separate water from salt
and other impurities. Both methods are energy and capital intensive, but for many regions, Kumar explains, “it's perhaps the only choice.”
Kumar is one of the co-leaders of the research whose findings could make desalination more efficient. The academic research team, along with
DuPont Water Solutions, solved a decades-long puzzle regarding understanding how water actually
moves through the membranes. “In the last 40 years [of membrane technology]...all the innovation was done in the dark. Now we
have a much more rational understanding of what can be done to make it better...so that this becomes
much more efficient instead of trying thousands of different things and hoping that something would work.” According to Jeffrey
Wilbur, manager of the reverse osmosis membrane chemistry research group at DuPont Water Solutions, over the next few years, DuPont,
which makes various desalination and water purification products, will look to use this discovery alongside their other tools. Membrane-based
desalination technology is cheaper, easier, and more energy efficient compared to thermal-based methods. However, it remains a costly option,
may require complicated cost engineering, and demands specially-trained personnel for technical issues. Currently, most the biggest market for
desalination technologies is the Gulf region, which accounts for 70 percent of all desalination plants in the world, spread out primarily between
Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain. Desalination helps produce about 80 percent of the total drinking water in GCC states.
“Technologies like this and advances like ours will really lead to its more widespread use throughout the
developing world,” Kumar adds. There are currently about 20,000 desalination plants around the world as of 2018, according to the
International Desalination Association. In addition to industrial and agricultural use, it provides about 300 million people with drinking water.
According to Sergio Salinas, a professor of Water Supply Engineering at the IHE Delft Institute, an institution that works to help build capacity in
the water sector in developing countries, desalination is not the primary solution for providing drinking water, but a technical and sustainable
solution to help alleviate water stress and scarcity in arid regions. “We can start by making more sustainable use of the demand for water,” he
tells TRT World. “We can start actually by saving water, by increasing the productivity of water in agriculture and industry, and by minimising
and reducing the leakages in distribution networks.” He explains that there are cities and regions where 30 to 60 percent of treated water is
lost during distribution. He adds that recycling water in industry, or water reuse in agriculture (which accounts for approximately 70 percent of
freshwater use), and the transport of water are other sustainable options for freshwater use. Finally, both Kumar and Salinas add that the
desalination of brackish water (which is less salty than seawater) and wastewater reuse should be prioritised over the oceans and seas for
freshwater resources. Environmental concerns In addition to its monetary costs, the detrimental environmental impact associated with
desalination technologies is also an issue. First, both kinds of desalination, particularly thermal desalination, require a lot of energy. In Gulf
countries, this energy is supplied through fossil fuels, which lead to the emission of greenhouse gases, contributing to global warming. There is
a new movement toward solar-powered desalination, and other renewable sources to meet the energy demand. Second, desalination produces
excess brine - about 1.5 litres of brine for every 1 litre of freshwater produced - as well as toxic contaminants from the desalination process,
which is usually dumped back into the ocean. When not done properly, it creates a high-salinity environment. Alongside increased
temperatures in certain areas, this process decreases the oxygen in the water, killing marine life, and affecting the food chain. As time goes on,
the increasingly salty water will also be more expensive to turn into freshwater. Salinas underlines the importance of capacity development,
particularly in developing contexts. "[It's important] so that when these kind of desalination projects need to be implemented locally, the water
professionals are also able to run and operate these plants. That's very relevant for the sustainability of these kind of projects," he says.
(Reuters) Third, sucking of seawater can also cause marine organisms to get caught in the intake screen, and injured or killed as a result. For
these reasons, according to some experts, it’s eventually going to become impossible to use, and economically unviable, particularly for Gulf
states, where it is most heavily used. While Salinas agrees that there are many challenges posed by desalination, there are also as many
sustainable solutions to address them. “There are many guidelines on the national level, but also from the UN, that propose steps
for performing environmental impact of desalination plants,” he explains. “In many cases countries are very
strict, like in the case of Australia and the United States where they have implemented and considered desalination plants. They have
a very careful assessment of the potential impacts and also of the monitoring of the of the impacts of the plants that have been constructed”
The social, economic, and ecological realities around desalination show that it could be a key feature for
the future of freshwater access, but it has to be managed sustainably within the greater framework of freshwater management.
According to Gunel, this hasn’t been the case, at least in the Gulf region. There, she argues, rather than opening eyes to the destructive reality
of human-led freshwater depletion, desalination, or, “the man-made character of water leads to a celebration of water’s interminable
abundance; more of it can always be manufactured, regardless of the environmental conditions of the region.” On the other hand, in places like
India, a solar-power desalination plant provides a more environmentally-friendly source of water, while also providing jobs for local women.
 2nc – NSTC Solves
Implementing recommendations advances the best technologies by leverages key
partnerships and expertise
NSTC 2019
The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is the principal means by which the Executive
Branch coordinates science and technology policy across the diverse entities that make up the Federal
research and development enterprise “COORDINATED STRATEGIC PLAN TO ADVANCE DESALINATION
FOR ENHANCED WATER SECURITY” March 2019 https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=824511 DMR
Conclusion Desalination is an important part of a comprehensive approach to improve water
availability,resiliency, and security in the U.S. This National Strategy outlines three overarching goals and
eight underlying priority areas that will support the advancement of desalination technologies to
enhance our Nation’s water security. This report also responds to Congressional direction outlined in the
WIIN Act to identify desalination priorities, coordinate relevant Federal Agencies, strengthen R&D
cooperation with our international partners, and to promote public-private partnership.
 2nc – NSTC Solves – Expertise
The CP effectively leverages federal R&D expertise to ensure widespread adoption of
desalination plants tailored to meet local conditions
NSTC 2019
The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is the principal means by which the Executive
Branch coordinates science and technology policy across the diverse entities that make up the Federal
research and development enterprise “COORDINATED STRATEGIC PLAN TO ADVANCE DESALINATION
FOR ENHANCED WATER SECURITY” March 2019 https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=824511 DMR
Goal 1. Reduce Risk and Streamline Local Planning to Support Desalination Water utility infrastructure
investments are largely non-Federal and managed by local entities. However, risk reduction and
streamlined local planning should be a shared responsibility across communities as well as State and
Federal agencies. Local institutions understand their system vulnerabilities and redundancies, and
Federal agencies can complement local institutes with their research capabilities and resources. This
section outlines and discusses two priorities for future Federal investments that support local
assessments and best practices in desalination planning, with the goal of promoting American water
security. Priority 1. Assess water resources and future needs To improve our Nation’s water security,
Federal capabilities should be coordinated to better understand regions vulnerable to water scarcity.
Water scarcity information could then be used to better determine situations where desalination would
be a viable option to improve water security and would help identify technology improvements needed
to increase desalination deployment in these regions. Understand future water availability
Understanding water quantity and quality needs across the United States is critical for planning our
Nation’s long-term water security. Existing Federal and State data should be coordinated and enhanced
to assess projected imbalances of water supply and demand at local and regional scales. Federal
agencies usually have the technical resources and missions to support water availability studies,
particularly at large spatial and long temporal scales. However, water balance studies at the local level
are needed to improve water availability projections that serve the needs of local utilities. This is
especially relevant with respect to assessing future stresses and finding opportunities to use
desalination technologies to improve water security. Developing best practices to ensure an accurate
understanding of future water availability is enhanced by integrating research and sharing data among
Federal, State, Tribal, academic, and private sector institutions. Improved forecasts can identify changes
in water supply due to stressed aquifers, water table declines, variability of supply (e.g., snow melt
dependent areas), coastal seawater encroachment, and competing demands. Federal agencies should
strive to ensure that data and tools that are developed are discoverable, accessible, and usable by
relevant stakeholders, including water utilities, investors, and the R&D community. These data should
also be periodically updated to take into account changes in industrial demands as industries grow and
change over time. Local communities should then be able to utilize these data and tools to develop
strategic plans that will improve their ability to assess future water needs and improve the resiliency of
their community. Hydrological data and modeling is central to understanding water availability, and a
number of Federal agencies collect, analyze, and share this information. For example, USGS’s Water
Resources Mission Area provides an assessment of the status of water resources in the U.S. and
identifies long-term trends in water availability and quality; the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Sandia
National Laboratory has developed a Water Report12 of the contiguous 48 States illustrating projections
of future water availability and demand; and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s
(NOAA) National Water Center is used to leverage expertise and investments across Federal agencies
and academia to improve water prediction and coordinate development of the National Water
Model13, which is a hydrologic model that simulates observed and forecasted streamflow over the
continental United States. While the Federal Government is developing multiple data sets to support
water availability projections, more work is needed to systematically integrate Federal data to support
local and State stakeholder needs and to help them determine whether desalination is an economically
viable method to improve the water security of their jurisdiction. Improving forecasts of water
availability is also consistent with priorities outlined in Presidential Memorandum, Promoting the
Reliable Supply and Delivery of Water in the West, issued by Donald J. Trump on October 19, 2018. This
memorandum highlights the need to facilitate greater use of forecastbased management and use of
authorities and capabilities provided by the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act of 2017.
The memorandum also calls for the development of an action plan to improve the information and
modeling capabilities related to water availability and water infrastructure projects. Overall, the
initiatives and future work outlined above will enhance water security in America.

Federal best practices ensure coordination and solve aff environment turns
NSTC 2019
The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is the principal means by which the Executive
Branch coordinates science and technology policy across the diverse entities that make up the Federal
research and development enterprise “COORDINATED STRATEGIC PLAN TO ADVANCE DESALINATION
FOR ENHANCED WATER SECURITY” March 2019 https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=824511 DMR
Establish best practices for local desalination facility planning
Best practices and tools created by Federal agencies to support desalination facility planning and
development need to be relevant and accessible by local communities. These tools should help
synthesize information from a variety of sources and communicate uncertainty and potential variability
in different parameters over time. The tools should consider site specific infrastructure requirements,
social and economic factors, and treated water quality objectives, which are important in the planning
and design of desalination facilities. Tools developed by Federal agencies should also assist communities
in determining whether desalination is the most technically and economically viable option given future
water security and scarcity risks. Best practices can help private industry as well as State, local, and
Tribal governments inform siting and design of desalination facilities, particularly regarding location,
capacity, technology, storage, and delivery. Best practices should allow stakeholders to fully understand
the supply chain of water (acquiring salt water, moving water, pre-treatment, treatment, removing
residues, and managing the energy requirements) and identify and leverage coupled water-power
facility opportunities. Best practices that help minimize unintended consequences of desalination is
also important, as it requires a systems level of understanding. Potential consequences that should be
considered include: the cumulative effects of pumping from groundwater aquifers over time, the effect
of the chemical composition of desalinated water on pipelines and other water supply infrastructure
originally built to accommodate traditional sources of water, the energy intensity of the desalination
process, and the cumulative ecosystem effects of brine discharge from desalination facilities. A
comprehensive approach that considers these best practices are essential to sustainable and resilient
outcomes. Providing local planners with best practices can be conducted through Federal or State
planning resources. For example, the USBR offers various grants to State, local, and Tribal governments
to develop strategies that establish or expand water markets or marketing activities between willing
participants, in compliance with State and Federal laws. 16 Federal agencies should consider using
similar types of programs that provide needed supportto help State, local, and Tribal stakeholder’s site
desalination facilities. Enhance environmental compliance resources and tools Compliance with Federal
and State environmental regulations is an important consideration when investing in desalination
strategies, but multijurisdictional requirements can inadvertently create barriers to adoption of
desalination technology. Federal, State, and local environmental concerns with desalination technology
include impacts to marine life from seawater intakes, disruption of marine ecosystems from concentrate
discharge, the energy intensity of the desalination process, and the potential degradation of water
quality. Furthermore, potential ecosystem impacts depend on sitespecific circumstances and local
environmental conditions that may change over time, thereby requiring careful monitoring and
management. Efficient environmental compliance helps better manage the environmental risks of
desalination facility siting, construction, and operations to marine, estuarine, and terrestrial
environments. In order to make sure these processes are a focus when developing desalination
operations, Federal agencies can recommend guidance to facilitate environmental compliance. For
example, NOAA coordinated the use of best practices for siting and developing desalination projects
with respect to environmental impacts and the regulatory process for a site in California.17
 2nc – NSTC Solves – R&D
Federal agencies are uniquely well suited to move R&D from early stage to market
NSTC 2019
The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is the principal means by which the Executive
Branch coordinates science and technology policy across the diverse entities that make up the Federal
research and development enterprise “COORDINATED STRATEGIC PLAN TO ADVANCE DESALINATION
FOR ENHANCED WATER SECURITY” March 2019 https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=824511 DMR
Priority 3. Encourage early-stage R&D
Federal support of basic research can improve the viability of desalination technology for use in many
situations. R&D should address broad technological questions, including both treatment and
pretreatment technology development requirements. Moreover, it is important to facilitate the transfer
of promising technologies from lab-to-market, which will ultimately result in further innovations, and is
a component of the President’s Management Agenda. 21 Further, Federal investment in early-stage
applied research in innovative technologies, enhancing the transfer of technology from lab-to-market,
and establishing public-private collaborations are R&D priority practices discussed in the FY 2020
Administration Research and Development Budget Priorities memorandum. 22 Support Federal early-
stage research Developing new membrane desalination processes and improving existing membrane
technologies will reduce energy and other costs associated with membrane based desalination. R&D is
needed to increase membrane permeability and selectivity, decrease fouling and degradation, minimize
maintenance, and increase membrane life expectancy for both steady state and intermittent operation.
In addition to membrane based treatments, non-membrane approaches are being investigated. These
include both thermal desalination as well as environmentally based approaches that rely on wetlands or
bacterial based techniques, which could lead to alternative desalination technologies. Under certain
conditions, these non-membrane systems may be more efficient and cost-effective than traditional
reverse-osmosis systems. Different parts of the country will require different desalination technologies,
and the technology choice should be assessed at the local level. Therefore, the development of cost
effective desalination and treatment technologies need to align with the varying needs of diverse
communities. Nearly all approaches to desalination require some sort of pretreatment to remove
suspended solids. While desalination costs and energy requirements have been reduced with better
reverse osmosis membranes and energy recovery technologies, the costs of pretreatment remains high.
Continued research into these complementary components of the desalination process is key to
reducing technical and economic barriers to enable the adoption of desalination. Opportunities also
exist to reduce energy costs by co-locating desalination facilities with power plants and other energy
facilities. Other examples for system integration include the development of energy recovery systems,
combined energy-water production, landfill gas-to-energy facilities, and other onsite sources of
renewable energy. Federal R&D should be flexible so that it can address special desalination technology
needs that are important to national economic, social, and environmental interests. One area of interest
involves produced water (PW) [water produced as a byproduct of oil and gas production], as it
represents the largest volume of waste associated with oil and gas extraction.23 PW contains a wide
variety of contaminants, including oil and grease, suspended solids, heavy metals, and radionuclides and
is typically not considered appropriate as a source of drinking water. However, after processing, multiple
industries can reuse PW, which would preserve freshwater resources for other uses. Technological
advances for the treatment of PW could save the energy industry more than $40 billion annually in
treatment and disposal costs. 24 Similarly, a significant amount of extracted water (EW) results from
carbon dioxide injections into deep saline aquifers. Reusing PW and EW provides opportunities to
improve our Nation’s water security, which is consistent with the 2017 National Security Strategy25 to
“improve America’s technological edge in energy [through] opportunities at the energy-water nexus.”
R&D focused on PW and EW treatment and desalination can contribute to PW and EW becoming a
viable water source for various industries, which improves the Nation’s water security. Cost-effective
desalination of these sources could offset water demand from agriculture, mineral extraction and
processing, oil and gas production, and manufacturing processes. Currently, DOE and USBR26 are
conducting R&D to reduce the cost of treating PW and EW. These targeted R&D goals would
complement innovations in desalination technology, which is consistent with a goal from the Water
Security Grand Challenge to “transform the energy sector’s produced water from a waste to a resource.”
More R&D is needed to identify added value along the desalination supply chain, such as markets for
sellable byproducts from the concentrated brine, which would help improve the economic viability of
desalination technologies and reduce potential environmental risks from brine disposal. Investing in
R&D in these areas could improve the economic case for using desalination technologies, which would
provide the private sector with the confidence needed to invest in these technologies. In order to
effectively leverage existing R&D in desalination technologies, more coordination is needed between the
Federal Government and other stakeholders. To help improve coordination, grants that supportjoint
research partnerships with academia, Federal labs, public utilities, and relevant industries are necessary
to support the diverse regional challenges associated with desalination technology. Federal agencies do
offer grants that support collaboration; specifically, the National Science Foundation (NSF) accepts
proposals for collaboration between academia and industry on early-stage technologies through its
Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry mechanism. Additionally, NSF also funds
research centers that involve groups of universities and, when appropriate, industry partners, such as
the Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-enabled Water Treatment. In order
to improve early-stage research, existing Federal research programs should support foundational or high
impact advanced technologies, use project diversity to spread risk, target nationally important
innovations at critical decision points, and contribute to quantifiable energy
savings. Every agency has unique capabilities that can be leveraged in coordinated R&D to advance
desalination technology.
 2nc – NSTC Solves – Scale-up
Federal R&D ensures timely scaling up of commercial development
NSTC 2019
The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is the principal means by which the Executive
Branch coordinates science and technology policy across the diverse entities that make up the Federal
research and development enterprise “COORDINATED STRATEGIC PLAN TO ADVANCE DESALINATION
FOR ENHANCED WATER SECURITY” March 2019 https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=824511 DMR
Operationalize early-stage technology
One immediate challenge to operationalizing early-stage desalination technology is the significant life‐
cycle gap that exists between initial demonstration of a new technology and its commercial
implementation at the end of development. Newer technologies are often at lower technical readiness
levels and require more time, effort, and resources to integrate with existing components. Often, scaling
up pilot trials to full-scale is exceedingly complex and expensive, especially with new membrane
technologies. It is important not to underestimate the complexity and challenge of integrating and
scaling up new technologies. Accordingly, there is a need to use existing facilities for pilot and full-scale
testing in order to capitalize on R&D investments and maximize commercialization of promising
technologies. Currently, USBR has several facilities27 and the U.S. Navy utilizes the Seawater
Desalination Test Facility for R&D, testing, evaluation, and training, which can be made available to
industry and other organizations. These are critical Federal capabilities, given that full-scale testing is
often the key to successful lab-to-market transitions and private sector adoption. Successfully
translating laboratory R&D to the commercial market is an R&D priority practice, as outlined in the
President’s Management Agenda and the FY 2020 Administration R&D Budget Priorities memorandum.
 2nc – NSTC Solves – Renewable
Federal agency collaboration fosters reinforcing RE and desal development
NSTC 2019
The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is the principal means by which the Executive
Branch coordinates science and technology policy across the diverse entities that make up the Federal
research and development enterprise “COORDINATED STRATEGIC PLAN TO ADVANCE DESALINATION
FOR ENHANCED WATER SECURITY” March 2019 https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=824511 DMR
Couple desalination with renewable energy
When considering adopting desalination technology, remote, rural, and island communities are often
constrained by access to reliable and low-cost energy. Facilities that couple renewable energy
production to desalination would provide opportunities for desalination in communities with limited
sources of energy, and would also support the development of rugged desalination technologies that
can handle disruptions in the electrical grid from events such as natural disasters. In isolated island
communities, technologies that use solar, hydrokinetics, and marine power (the generation of power
from marine tides, currents, and waves) can be harnessed to reduce the cost of desalination, where
power is a limiting factor to implementation. R&D in coupling renewable energy with desalination
should be geared towards identifying implementable technologies for remote or island communities
that are cost effective and attractive to investors. While most desalination plants in the United States
utilize reverse osmosis technology powered by electricity, there may be opportunities for improved
cost-competitive technologies that use solarthermal energy directly. Using solar-thermal energy avoids
the efficiency loss resulting from conversion of electricity to thermal energy, while also enabling off-grid
operation. DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Solar Energy Technologies
Office develops novel concentrated solar power technologies and concepts that convert solar energy to
useful thermal energy primarily for electricity generation, but could be used to power desalination as
well. Similarly, DOE’s EERE Water Power Technologies Office funds early-stage R&D to in the emerging
fields of hydrokinetic wave, current, and tidal energy technologies. Wave and tidal power technologies
can provide locally-sourced and reliable energy to coastal communities and ocean industries. Further,
wave energy is one of the few technologies that can produce clean water without the need to convert
energy to electricity, which is advantageous in locations where grid-connected electricity is unreliable or
costly, such as a remote island, during an emergency, or to support military operations. Direct coupling
of desalination technology with renewable energy resources is still an emerging field of research. More
research is needed that couple these technologies together in a cost effective manner that would allow
for
expanded use beyond early-stage prototypes.
 2nc – NSTC Solves – Environment T/s
Enhanced federal R&D ensures more environmentally sound mechanisms are
commercialized
NSTC 2019
The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is the principal means by which the Executive
Branch coordinates science and technology policy across the diverse entities that make up the Federal
research and development enterprise “COORDINATED STRATEGIC PLAN TO ADVANCE DESALINATION
FOR ENHANCED WATER SECURITY” March 2019 https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=824511 DMR
Priority 5. Advance technologies to reduce ecological impact
Environmental and public health concerns are often a barrier to desalination adoption. The unintended
impacts of brine disposal and desalination plant intake and discharge can be detrimental to local marine
ecosystems and their reliant economies. Monitoring for desalination impacts on marine life is frequently
limited. Encouraging R&D to assess the ecological impacts of desalination can safeguard our natural
resources and guide responsible development in the future. Advances in technology can create more
efficient systems to reduce the energy requirements and associated emissions of desalination.
Mechanisms such as coupling existing electricity generation plants with desalination facilities, or linking
desalination facilities with renewable sources of energy such as solar, could remedy desalination’s high-
energy requirements and reduce harmful ecological impacts. Capabilities at the Department of Defense,
Department of the Interior, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), DOE and NOAA should be
coordinated to advance the R&D discussed in this section to help reduce the ecological impact of
desalination technologies. Minimize effluent Early-stage Federal R&D can facilitate industry investments
in the desalination process by determining innovative ways to manage concentrates or reduce the
volume of brine generated from current inland desalination treatment processes. For example, USBR
has been funding research into concentrate management for decades and has been performing full-
scale testing of innovative technologies that enable zero liquid discharge. The U.S. Army Engineer
Research and Development Center is developing an energy-efficient system for managing brine from
reverse osmosis processes in deployed military settings. This system uses waste heat from electrical
generators to rapidly dry brine concentrate streams while recovering the evaporated water. Several
technologies developed by Federal agencies have already been adopted by industry, such as use of a
novel non-thermal brine concentrator and technology that reduces crystal growth during the
desalination process. The commercialization of these technologies developed from Federal R&D
demonstrates the value of these types of projects. Reduce environmental impact from water intake
systems Open water intake systems may have impacts on the marine environment, including directly
through impingement and entrainment of aquatic organisms. Effects of intake systems vary due to site-
specific circumstances and local environmental conditions. R&D is needed to improve technologies to
reduce environmental impact from desalination water intake systems and to meet standards set by
local,
State, and Federal environmental regulations.
 2nc – NSTC Solves – International Coop
International collaboration ensures tech advances are modeled – multiple
partnerships will promote the spread of best practices and enhance global water
security
NSTC 2019
The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is the principal means by which the Executive
Branch coordinates science and technology policy across the diverse entities that make up the Federal
research and development enterprise “COORDINATED STRATEGIC PLAN TO ADVANCE DESALINATION
FOR ENHANCED WATER SECURITY” March 2019 https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=824511 DMR
Priority 8. Cooperate with international partners

Federalresearchers routinely collaborate with international partners to advance research into scientific
topics of shared interest. For example, the Office of Naval Research’s Naval International Cooperative
Opportunities Program funds collaborative basic research grants between an international and U.S.
principal investigator; the NSF has collaboration agreements with international partners, including the
U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation35 on research cooperation; and USDA has funded
desalination-related R&D through the U.S.-Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development
Fund.36 Federal agencies can also engage with international research centers through existing
agreements with U.S. universities or through participation in international research networks. The
International Center for Integrated Water Resources Management, a U.S. Government-funded, United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) center housed at the USACE
Institute of Water Resources, provides a mechanism for international networking and cooperation
between U.S. agencies and universities and counterpart UNESCO water centers around the world to
support research into best practices for integrated water resource management. U.S. institutions may
also establish a memorandum of understanding with other countries’ institutions to promote the
exchange of scientific and technical knowledge and capabilities related to desalination, such as the NSF
and USDA’s solicitation for Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy, and Water Systems. International
technology challenges and prize competitions can provide another venue for technical innovation
through international cooperation. Accordingly, DOE recently partnered with Israel’s Ministry of
National Infrastructure, Energy, and Water Resources37 to encourage the design and development of a
novel integrated energy and desalination system. Although domestic technical agencies do collaborate
with foreign counterparts on desalination R&D, the State Department can further strengthen R&D
cooperation with international partners and play a central role in facilitating U.S. researcher access to
foreign facilities, expertise, and data. Accordingly, the State Department has regular bilateral science
meetings and exchange programs with international partners. Greater collaboration with these partners
would foster improved understanding that boosts American technical capability and knowledge in
desalination technologies. In addition to improving R&D, examination of the ecological and
environmental quality consequences of various types of seawater intake and brine disposal methods
from desalination in places like Australia, South Africa, Spain, and Iraq could prove instructive in
reducing environmental harm in the United States. Morocco and the United Arab Emirates are also
developing technologies to desalinate seawater powered entirely from renewable energy. Lessons
learned from these experiences could contribute to enhanced U.S. energy and water security. Current
U.S. State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development desalination cooperation efforts
strengthen the capacity of our international partners to secure reliable and sustainable access to water.
This in turn supports American foreign policy objectives and enhances economic and regional stability
and security. While these programs are not designed to directly enhance American technical capabilities,
desalination cooperation has been an abiding element of the American pursuit of comprehensive Middle
East peace. A key component of U.S. engagement has been the strengthening of Arab-Israeli relations.
The Middle East Multilaterals (MEM) program was established after the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference
as part of the multilateral track of the peace process. This program fosters peaceful engagement among
Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and neighboring Arab States. Funding via MEM provides financing and
technical expertise for cooperative projects that support important aspects of a comprehensive peace,
such as joint water management, sustainable environmental management, and coordination on
infectious diseases. The U.S. State Department manages a portion of the Economic Support and
Development Funds, which constitute the bulk of the MEM program budget. The Bureau of Near Eastern
Affairs has used these funds to support training programs and projects, principally through the Middle
East Desalination Research Center (MEDRC) to advance a regional approach to sustainable development
in a water-scarce region. The MEDRC conducts regional workshops on water management and
desalination to facilitate regional cooperation with an important goal of creating the conditions to
facilitate direct negotiations between Israel and Palestine. In addition to promoting information
exchange, this program is one of the only non-security channels bringing Israeli and Palestinian
stakeholders together for constructive problemsolving on a variety of topics, including desalination. The
United States also provides expertise to the MEDRC by supplying technical experts to support meetings,
and by helping initiatives such as the recently launched MEDRC Prize Competition on small hand-held
desalination systems.38 Through partnerships, programs, and cooperation with our national and
international partners, the United States will be better aligned to optimize R&D efforts to yield the
highest possible return on

investment in desalination technologies.

 2nc – Desal CP Solves
Recent tech breakthroughs lower the cost and improve energy efficiency
Yale 21- Yale Environment 360 by Yale School of the Environment (“Scientists Say They Have Solved
Desalination Mystery, Improving Efficiency,” Yale E360, 1-14-21, Accessed Online at
https://e360.yale.edu/digest/scientists-solve-desalination-mystery-improving-efficiency, Accessed
Online on 7-3-21, DG)

Scientists believe they have solved one of the biggest mysteries about desalination — exactly how
reverse osmosis membranes work to remove salt and other chemicals from water — a breakthrough they say could
help make the process more efficient and cheaper. “Reverse osmosis membranes are widely used for
cleaning water, but there’s still a lot we don’t know about them,” Manish Kumar, a chemical engineer at the University of
Texas, Austin and co-author of the new research, said in a statement. “We couldn’t really say how water moves through
them, so all the improvements over the past 40 years have essentially been done in the dark.” A team of
researchers from the University of Texas and Pennsylvania State University, in partnership with DuPont Water Solutions, discovered
that desalination membranes are inconsistent in mass distribution and density. These inconsistencies
can impair the performance of reverse osmosis, they found. By making the membranes more uniform in
density at the nanoscale, the researchers were able to increase desalination efficiency 30 to 40 percent,
therefore cleaning more water with less energy and lowering the cost. The findings were published earlier this month in
the journal Science. The discovery comes at a critical time, when climate change, population growth, and pollution are
threatening access to safe drinking water. “Freshwater management is becoming a crucial challenge throughout the
world,” said Enrique Gomez, a professor of chemical engineering at Penn State who co-led the research. “Shortages, droughts — with
increasing severe weather patterns, it is expected this problem will become even more significant . It’s critically important to have
clean water availability, especially in low-resource areas.”

Desal is now a viable global option – tech innovations drive down costs and emissions
Pike 21- Communication Specialist at Purdue School of Mechanical Engineering (Jared, “Breakthrough
in reverse osmosis may lead to most energy-efficient seawater desalination ever,” Purdue University, 5-
12-21, Accessed Online at https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2021/Q2/breakthrough-in-
reverse-osmosis-may-lead-to-most-energy-efficient-seawater-desalination-ever.html, Accessed Online
on 7-3-21, DG)

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Making fresh water out of seawater usually requires huge amounts of energy. The
most widespread process for desalination is called reverse osmosis, which works by flowing seawater over a
membrane at high pressure to remove the minerals. Now, Purdue University engineers have developed a variant of the
process called “batch reverse osmosis,” which promises better energy efficiency, longer-lasting
equipment and the ability to process water of much higher salinity. It could end up a difference-maker in water security
around the world. Reverse osmosis is used in many countries; in arid places like the Middle East, more than
half of the fresh drinking water supplies come from desalination facilities. But to maintain the high level of pressure
required for the process – up to 70 times atmospheric pressure – a desalination plant must employ large numbers of pumps and other
equipment. And that uses a lot of energy. “About a third of the lifetime cost of a desalination plant is energy,” said
David Warsinger, a Purdue assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “Even small improvements to the process – a few
percentage points of difference – can save hundreds of millions of dollars and help to keep CO2 out of
the atmosphere.” During his doctoral work at MIT, Warsinger first developed the idea of “batch reverse osmosis.”
Rather than keeping a constant flow of seawater at those high pressure levels, a
batch process takes in a set quantity of water
at one time; processes it; discharges it; and then repeats the process with the next batch. “Each batch runs for
about one to two minutes,” Warsinger said. “We ramp up the pressure over time, reduce the volume over time, and we end up using much less
energy to produce the same amount of fresh water.” Though some desalination plants have attempted to use semibatch techniques, none has
ever implemented a full batch system – partly because of the time breaks between batches. “It
takes time and energy to pump
each batch of water out, and then pump the next batch of water in for processing,” Warsinger said.
“Expending that time and energy generally cancels out the efficiency gains you would get from using the batch
process. That’s why we developed a solution called ‘double-acting batch reverse osmosis.’” Double-duty piston
This new process uses a piston tank — a high-pressure vessel with a piston in the middle. While one side of
the piston sends seawater forward into the processing loop, the other side of the piston simultaneously fills up with the next batch of seawater
in the queue. When one batch process ends, the piston seamlessly injects the next batch of seawater into the system while simultaneously
filling its other side with the next batch of seawater in the queue, and the process repeats continuously. “ Instead
of fully emptying
the piston each time or using some other liquid or gas to pressurize the piston, we’re filling it with the next batch of
seawater,” Warsinger said. “So rather than one side of the piston being essentially dead space, we are using the seawater itself
to get double-duty out of this piston, so there’s almost no downtime. “According to our models, this proposed
system offers the lowest energy consumption ever for seawater desalination. It’s a best-in-class milestone.” Their
research has been published in Desalination. “Downtime is really something you want to avoid,” said Sandra Cordoba, a
Purdue master’s student in mechanical engineering and first author of the paper. “ If you have to service the system after every
cycle, you lose all your energy efficiency. Reducing or eliminating that downtime is the key thing that
makes batch reverse osmosis feasible.” Cordoba also developed the theoretical hydraulic models used in the paper. “Reverse
osmosis is a complex process,” Cordoba said. “To gauge its success, you have to track many variables: water pressure, volume, salinity, recovery
ratio, time and energy. With
these models, we were able to determine the right amount of pressure over time
to achieve the best results using the minimum amount of energy.” How big is the piston tank? It depends on the size of
the system. “Reverse osmosis operates on a wide range of scales,” Warsinger said. “Households in India often have a micro reverse osmosis
system for their own home, where you could hold it in your hands. For our experiments, we’ve built a model system where the piston tank is
about the size of a fire extinguisher. In a full-scale plant, it could be a hundred feet long. But the
beauty of it is that it’s not a
complex piece of equipment; it’s essentially a pipe, with a water-tight piston in the middle . But that
piston tank changes everything.” Warsinger’s lab has used this double-acting batch development to fuel
several new advances in desalination. Abhimanyu Das, a Purdue Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering, has published research
describing a variant of the process called “batch counterflow reverse osmosis.” By recirculating certain concentrations of
water on both sides of the membrane, Das’ process is shown to be the most energy-efficient
desalination process for high-salinity water, while requiring fewer components . And Purdue master’s student
Michael Roggenburg has published research showing that a combination of batch reverse osmosis and renewable
energy could conceivably deliver fresh water to the entire 1,954-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico.
“Water security is a huge issue around the world, which I’ve spent my whole career working on,” Warsinger said. “These results with batch
reverse osmosis are really exciting. If we bring the cost down just a little bit, then desalination becomes a viable
option for more places. It could be transformative.”
 2nc – Desal States Solvency
States solve – desalination plants now
Reicher 20- Research Assistant at Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (William M., “A Tale of Two
Coastlines: Desalination in China and California,” China Environmental Forum at New Security Beat, 9-
17-20, Accessed Online at https://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2020/09/tale-coastlines-desalination-
china-california/, Accessed Online on 7-10-21, DG)

In the United States, a similar situation is unfolding. After a prolonged drought between 2011-2015, California’s
investment in
desalination solutions to supply fresh water to the state’s dry south grew exponentially. While most American desalination
plants are used to purify less-saline “brackish water” from rivers and bays, large-scale seawater operations have begun to
proliferate in California, as well as Florida and Texas. California alone has 11 municipal seawater
desalination plants, with 10 more proposed. Southern California-based Poseidon Water LLC opened
America’s largest desalination facility in Carlsbad in 2015, which currently meets about 10 percent of San
Diego’s water demand. With the capacity to produce 54 million gallons of water a day, this new desalination plant, as well as another
one currently in the works at Huntington Beach, could ensure water security in Southern California. While China currently has 140 desalination
plants, the
United States has 400+ municipal plants, with hundreds more micro-plants used by the oil and
gas industry. About two-thirds of U.S. desalinated water feeds municipal water systems, while heavy industry
consumes only 18 percent. China, in contrast, pipes two-thirds of its desalinated water into power plants, steel making, and petrochemical
production. The remaining small-scale plants supply isolated island communities or coastal cities. Currently, desalination accounts for only 1.2
percent of China’s domestic water supply, making seawater and brackish water a severely underutilized resource in this drought-plagued
country. Overall, California’s desalination sector is more efficient than the fledgling industry in China and thus
enjoys advantages in cost competitiveness and environmental management.

No federal involvement needed

Brazil 17- features writer for TimesOC at the LA Times (Ben, “Desalination plant reportedly on list of
Trump’s priority projects,” Daily Pilot at the LA Times, 1-25-17, Accessed Online at
https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/tn-dpt-me-poseidon-desal-list-20170125-story.html,
Accessed Online on 7-9-21, DG)

The proposed $1-billion Poseidon Water desalination project, which would be built next to the AES power plant
at Newland Street and Pacific Coast Highway, taking advantage of some of that facility’s infrastructure, is listed as No. 44 on the document. The
proposal has been mired in controversy for years. People
who support it say building a facility that would produce 50
million gallons a day of salt-free water is a logical direction to take in a state that has suffered through years of drought as
competition for water from the Colorado River intensifies. Those against the plant fear harm to marine life and the rest of
the ocean environment. The leaked document describes the plant as a “cost-effective environmentally
sensitive solution to provide a safe and reliable water supply to Orange County residents and has the potential to bring
significant economic benefits for the city of Huntington Beach and the region.” Poseidon Vice President Scott Maloni said Wednesday that he
was surprised to see the project on the list but called the inclusion
“consistent with longstanding bipartisan support in
California and Washington.” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa), who represents the 48th congressional district, which includes
Huntington Beach, could not be reached for comment Wednesday because he was at a Republican retreat, his spokesman Ken Grubbs said.
Grubbs said the desalination project is one that he “would likely support.” In a news release, Orange County Coastkeeper, an environmental
group that opposes the desalination plant, said Wednesday that the federal document contains false data on the project. According to the
leaked document, it would cost $350 million to build the plant, which would create 400 jobs. But, according to Coastkeeper, the Orange County
Water District determined it would cost $1 billion to construct the plant and it would create 18 full-time jobs and 322 indirect jobs following
construction. Ray Hiemstra, associate director of Coastkeeper, said in an interview Wednesday that he
doesn’t think Trump’s list
will have any influence on the approval process that Poseidon is currently going through. “It really doesn’t change
much,” Hiemstra said. “There are no federal permits that they are seeking, and they still need the state
permits.” Poseidon Water is waiting for the completion of a supplement to an environmental impact report that was finished in 2010. The
supplement addresses the effect of new technologies added to the proposal since the original EIR. Maloni said Wednesday that the
supplemental EIR is expected to be completed in March. Then, in June, the California State Lands Commission will hold a
hearing, Maloni said. In order to move forward with the project, the plant needs permits from the Lands Commission, the Santa Ana
Regional Water Board and the California Coastal Commission. When asked if state agencies might fast-track projects based on federal advice,
Hiemstra said he doesn’t think that would happen, especially in light of Gov. Jerry Brown’s vow to fight the Trump administration over any
effort to roll back progress on fighting climate change. Maloni
similarly said that because the permits needed for the
project are state-based, Trump’s inclusion of it on the priority list will not affect the process.
 2nc – AT Energy Intensity
Renewable desalination expanding now
Ahmadi et. al. 20- Energy Economics Laboratory, Graduate School of Energy Science, Kyoto
University (Esmaeil, Benjamin McLellan, Behnam Mohammadi-Ivatloo, and Tetsuo Tezuka, “The Role of
Renewable Energy Resources in Sustainability of Water Desalination as a Potential Fresh-Water Source:
An Updated Review,” Sustainability 2020, Accessed Online at https://www.mdpi.com/2071-
1050/12/13/5233, Accessed Online on 7-3-21, DG)

The current share of renewable desalination is less than 1 percent of global desalination capacity [107].
The cost of renewable desalination is still higher than the cost of conventional desalination powered by fossil fuels.
However, renewable technologies are experiencing a rapid cost reduction, making the renewable
desalination already cost-competitive with the conventional desalination in remote regions (where the cost of electricity
transmission and distribution is higher than the cost of decentralized electricity production). With this rapid cost reduction of
renewable technologies, technical advances, and an improvement in the knowledge and experience by increasing
the number of installations, the costs of renewable-powered desalination are likely to reduce significantly in the
near future. It is expected that a major portion of fossil-fuel-powered desalination plants will be replaced by
renewable-powered desalination with an average cost of 0.9 USD/m3 by 2050 [108]. The renewable desalination was forecast
to be sufficient only for domestic water supply in 2030, but to expand for further domestic and industrial
water supply needs by 2050 [108,109]. As discussed, each desalination technology has its advantages and disadvantages. As shown
in Table 1, RO is the most utilized desalination technology among previous studies indicating the potential
of this technology for integration with renewables as a future sustainable solution for water-scarce regions. As an
advantage, RO plants are scalable, typically consisting of several dozen units, and thereby its size can be
expanded to meet the growing demand by adding more units as needed. The costs of RO desalination
significantly decrease in treating lower salinity or brackish water due to lower energy requirements. By
contrast, thermal distillation processes, namely MED and MSF technologies, need the same amount of energy
regardless of salinity. As a result, thermal distillation processes are more competitive than RO desalination
technology for high salinity waters when there is also high biofouling potential . MED technology is more
competitive at a smaller scale compared to MSF technology, making this technology a better option for integration with renewables.
Furthermore, MED operates at lower temperatures than MSF; as a result, its process is more compatible for integrating with renewable thermal
power generation. Solar and wind resources have been widely used for powering desalination among
previous studies (see Table 1). Power generation from wind and photovoltaic requires zero or little water use [107]. Wind power is
likely to be cheaper than photovoltaic power wherever it is available. Coastal areas usually benefit from a high
availability of wind power resources. On the other hand, water-scarce regions or drylands are characterized
by abundant solar radiation, which increases the capacity factor of solar resources and makes them
more competitive compared to wind resources [110]. To sum up, the most promising combination of technologies is RO desalination
technology with photovoltaic and MED desalination technology with solar thermal collectors. For large-scale units, wind power is
more attractive wherever it is available, as it does not need a large area for installation, such as islands
where often limited flat ground is available.
 2nc – AT Expense
Prices will continue dropping
Ghernaout and Elboughdiri 20- Professor at the Department of Chemical Engineering, University
of Ha’il, KSA and Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, University of Blida AND**
Head of Chemical Engineering Department at Ha’il University and Chemical Engineering Process
Department, National School of Engineering, University of Gabes (Djamel and Noureddine, “Desalination
in the Context of Water Scarcity Crisis: Dares & Perspectives,” Open Access Library Journal Vol.07 No.11
(November 2020), Accessed Online at https://www.scirp.org/html/104321_104321.htm, Accessed
Online on 7-2-21, DG)

5.3. Outlooks for Technologies and Prices Desalination engineering has ameliorated, and prices persist to
down greatly [1] . From 1980 to 2005, the price of desalination dropped by more than half (Figure 8).
Even if desalination stays costly juxtaposed to traditional water treatment techniques, more decreases
in prices are possibly to close the space more in the next twenty years. Such progresses are most
probably to be in desalination engineering, in pretreatment [66] [67] [68] , in brine management [14]
[46] , and in energy efficiency and sourcing [2] [29] [36] . Additional huge price discounts are predictable,
especially for SWRO, in which prices are awaited to more drop by up to two-thirds during the following
twenty years thanks to technological ameliorations in membrane design and system integration [1]
5.3.1. Progresses in Traditional Desalination Methods While only comparatively restricted additional
amelioration in thermal techniques is anticipated, elevating performance in fundamental price elements
will persist to render SWRO more competitive. Among such cost-decreasing ingredients has been the
amelioration in membrane productivity that has doubled during the last two decades. Ameliorations are
continuing apace, as freshly expanded membrane elements give flexibility and choice and allow trade-
offs Figure 8. Trends in the cost of desalination of Multistage Flash (MSF) distillation and Seawater
Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) plants [1] . among productivity and energy prices. In fact, such ameliorations in
membrane performance rather than in energy recovery that are anticipated to support the position of
SWRO as the most cost-competitive process in most circumstances [1] . 5.3.2. Arising Technical Progress
with Elevated Desalination Price Lowering Possibility In addition to the technical ameliorations
previously anticipated under frequently utilized desalination techniques, several fresh methods or
adaptations are arising, which could provide the potential for even bigger productivity and lower prices
(Table 2). Table 2. New techniques or readjustments apt for giving the possibility for bigger productivity
and lower prices [1] . The possible influence of technology expansion is spectacular and can cut SWRO
prices by half or more in the next decade. Present tendencies in the depression of the desalination price,
and the augmenting prices of the alternatives, are possible to persist, and it is not unlikely that cost
decreases of 20% during 5 years will be encountered for SWRO and 60% in 20 years [1] [70] .

Desalination solves – new innovations increase efficiency and drop prices

Mosley and Raphelson 20- co-host of Here & Now, a midday radio show co-produced by NPR and
WBUR and host of the Truth Be Told podcast AND** digital producer for Here & Now based at NPR
(Tonya and Samantha, “Driven By Climate Change, Desalination Researchers Seek Solutions To Water
Scarcity,” WBUR of NPR, 2-18-20, Accessed Online at
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/02/18/desalination-climate-change-water-scarcity, Accessed
Online on 7-2-21, DG)
The state of California has dedicated $34 million for eight desalination facilities across the state amid
growing concerns about water scarcity in the U.S. Desalination is when saltwater is converted into
freshwater. Though 71% of the Earth is made up of water, extreme weather linked to climate change is adding to concerns about water
scarcity. Scientists estimate that by 2071, nearly half of the 204 freshwater basins in the U.S. may not be able to meet
the monthly demand for water, according to a study published in the journal Earth’s Future. Extracting salt from water seems like an
easy fix to a global problem, but the process of desalination can be expensive, and it can also have a huge impact
on the environment. That’s why some researchers are looking into how to lower the cost and improve
efficiency. Desalination technology can cost anywhere between two to 10 times the cost of traditional freshwater sources, says Meagan
Mauter, research director for the National Alliance for Water Innovation and an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at
Stanford University. “I think it's very important to think about seawater desalination as one part of a much broader water portfolio,” she says.
“In the same way that we don't rely solely on solar panels to provide electricity, we shouldn't be thinking about relying solely on next-
generation desalination facilities to provide water.” Mauter says desalination
costs so much because of the amount of
energy needed to separate salt from water, she says. “The National Alliance for Water Innovation is really
built on the premise that to drop costs and to reduce energy intensity, we need to look at the broader
network of water management in order to drop those costs,” Mauter says. “So broadly, the costs of managing water are the
combination of the costs of treating water, plus the costs of distributing water and collecting wastewater.” The amount of energy needed for
the desalination process also negatively affects the environment. Most
of the current technology is tailored for large scale
desalination projects, but building technology on a smaller scale could offset the financial and
environmental impacts, Mauter says. “It'll drop the overall energy intensity of that combined treatment and
distribution,” she says. “And second, novel ways of managing concentrate at smaller scales will help us avoid
the need to do lots of seawater desalination to augment supply.” Climate change is not only expected to affect the amount of
available water, but it will also impact “the timing at which that water is delivered or naturally stored,” Mauter says. Making the electricity
system more energy efficient is also “deeply connected” to the water supply. “The process of decarbonizing our electricity system or our energy
system is itself going to require lots of water treatment capabilities,” she says. “ Underlying
that is a tremendous need for new
desalination technologies that integrate well with the electricity system.” While desalination is more costly and
energy intensive than some other water sources, it does provide water resilience for municipalities because it is not
subject to drought, changes in precipitation or snowpack, Mauter says.

Government funding reduces cost

WaterWorld 21- citing the Desalination and Water Purification Research Program at the Bureau of
Reclamation (“Reclamation announces funding opportunity for desalination tech,” WaterWorld, 4-21-
21, Accessed Online at https://www.waterworld.com/drinking-water/infrastructure-funding/press-
release/14201849/reclamation-announces-funding-opportunity-for-desalination-tech, Accessed Online
on 7-8-21, DG)

WASHINGTON -- The Bureauof Reclamation has published the Desalination and Water Purification Research
Program Pitch to Pilot funding opportunity. This funding opportunity is open until June 03, 2021 and is available on grants.gov
by searching for opportunity number R21AS00424. Pilot-scale technologies or processes that incorporate or are innovative and disruptive
technologies involving flow rates above one gallon per minute and that need to be tested using natural water sources rather than synthetic or
laboratory-made feed water are eligible. The objectives
of this funding opportunity are to develop innovative and
disruptive new technologies or processes to reduce the costs, energy requirements, and/or
environmental impacts of treating impaired and unusable water to standards necessary for an identified beneficial use, improve
efficiency of water treatment processes—either by improvements to pre-treatment, post-treatment, monitoring, sensors, or other innovative
process/technology, increase effectiveness of reverse osmosis/nanofiltration concentrate management by reducing cost, energy, and/or
environmental impacts, treat brackish groundwater in a less energy-intensive way than current processes and technologies, address costs,
energy usage, and/or environmental impacts of seawater desalination, including intakes and/or outfalls. Desalination
and Water
Purification Research Program (DWPR) works with Reclamation researchers and partners to develop
innovative, cost-effective, and technologically efficient ways to desalinate and treat water. DWPR funding plays a critical
role in iterating an idea from the lab to a real-world demonstration, yielding products that serve the water
treatment community and attract commercialization interest.
 2nc – AT Environment: Brine Dumping
Extend 1nc TRT World evidence – US environmental impact requirements are
extremely strict

New innovations solve their brine dumping impacts

Leahy and Purvis 16- international environmental journalist AND** former Guardian production
coordinator (Stephen and Katherine, “Peak salt: is the desalination dream over for the Gulf states?,” The
Guardian, 9-29-16, Accessed Online at https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-
professionals-network/2016/sep/29/peak-salt-is-the-desalination-dream-over-for-the-gulf-states,
Accessed Online on 7-10-21, DG)

With groundwater sources either exhausted or non-existent and climate change bringing higher temperatures
and less rainfall, Gulf states plan to nearly double the amount of desalination by 2030 (doc). This is bad news for
marine life and for the cost of producing drinking water – unless something can be done about the brine. Farid Benyahia,
a chemical engineer at Qatar University, believes he has a solution. He recently patented a process that could eliminate
the need for brine disposal by nearly 100%. The process uses pure carbon dioxide (emitted during the desalination process by
burning fossil fuels for power) and ammonia to turn brine into baking soda and calcium chloride. Whether the process

is cost-effective remains to be seen but Benyahia believes it could be, especially if markets are found for large volumes of the end
products. Other efforts are also under way to reduce desalination’s country-sized carbon footprint which globally accounts for 76m tonnes of carbon dioxide per
year – nearly equivalent to Romania’s emissions in 2014. The
Global Clean Water Desalination Alliance was formed in 2015 to
tackle this problem by increasing efficiencies and shifting to renewable energy sources, such as solar-
powered desalination. Saudi Arabia expects to have a commercial-scale plant operational by 2017 and in California, a proposed solar-powered
desalination plant combines innovation, efficiency and design.
 2nc – AT Environment: Marine Animals
Extend 1nc TRT World evidence – US environmental impact requirements are
extremely strict

New fish-friendly intake pumps solve their marine life impacts

Jones 20- Director of Communications at Poseidon Water (Jessica, “New Seawater Intake Pumps
Preserve Marine Environment, Enhance Climate-Resilient Water Supply,” Carlsbad Desalination Plant
News, 7-23-20, Accessed Online at https://www.carlsbaddesal.com/news/new-seawater-intake-pumps-
preserve-marine-environment-enhance-climate-resilient-water-supply, Accessed Online on 7-10-21, DG)

Carlsbad, Calif. (July 22, 2020) – New fish-friendly seawater intake pumps recently commissioned at the Carlsbad
Desalination Plant are among the most environmentally advanced intake pumps in the world. The three intake
pumps, manufactured by Indar, are part of a broader effort to ensure the long-term health of the marine
environment near the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, which sits on the shores of Agua Hedionda Lagoon. Installation
of the new intake pumps is part of a phased program to replace the existing seawater intake and discharge
facilities with state-of-the-art technology to protect marine life that wasn’t available when the plant was operating with source water
from the Encina Power Station. The closure of the power station in December 2018 led to temporary intake-discharge operations until the new
intake pumps came online. The
next steps include adding new intake screens, designed to prevent any sea-life
larger than 1 millimeter (thicker than a credit card) from entering the plant. The work to complete the
construction and commissioning of the new fish-friendly seawater intake pumps was part of the
essential work allowed under California guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic. The contractor, Kiewit-Shea Joint
Venture, worked in accordance with guidelines adopted by the State Building and Construction Trades Council and approved by the governor
for essential construction. The contractor worked uninterrupted to complete the project per the June 30, 2020, deadline set by the Regional
Water Quality Control Board without any health or safety violations.
 NB – Politics – Bipartisan
Desalination is bipartisan
Heinsius 21- EXECUTIVE PRODUCER/LOCAL CONTENT MANAGER at KNAU (Ryan, “U.S. Senate Passes
Water Infrastructure Bill Funding Arizona Tribal Water Projects,” KNAU, 4-30-21, Accessed Online at
https://www.knau.org/post/us-senate-passes-water-infrastructure-bill-funding-arizona-tribal-water-
projects, Accessed Online on 7-10-21, DG)

The U.S. Senate Thursday passed a bipartisan bill to update the nation’s aging water systems. Many of its
provisions are aimed at preventing water waste in areas like Arizona hard hit by drought. KNAU’s Ryan Heinsius reports.
The $35 billion Drinking Water and Wastewater Infrastructure Act is the first legislation related to the Biden-Harris
administration’s sweeping infrastructure proposal to advance out of the Senate. It would invest in alternate water
sources like storm and wastewater reuse and desalination projects. It would also shore up the nation’s water systems against
climate change, drought, wildfire and cyber threats.
 NB – EPA Trade-off
Desalination and Water Purification Research Program (DWPR) funds
Duke ND- (“Desalination and Water Purification Research Program,” Duke University Research Funding
Website, Accessed Online at https://researchfunding.duke.edu/desalination-and-water-purification-
research-program, Accessed Online on 7-8-21, DG)

Desalination and Water Purification Research Program Funding Agency: Department of the Interior The
United States Department of the Interior (Department), Bureau of Reclamation’s (Reclamation) Desalination and Water
Purification Research Program (DWPR) works with Reclamation researchers and partners to develop
innovative, cost-effective, and technologically efficient ways to desalinate or treat water. DWPR aligns with Executive Order
14008, “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad,” by investing in development and application of advanced water treatment
technologies that expand access to otherwise unusable water resources, thereby increasing water supply flexibility under the risks of long-term
climate change and shorter-term drought. Investing in such technologies leads to development of climate-resilient,
cost-effective, and low-impact solutions that bolster the ability of Reclamation, its customers, and stakeholders to cope
with stresses of climate change. DWPR funding plays a critical role in iterating an idea from the lab to a real-world demonstration,
which yields products that serve the water treatment community and attract commercialization interest. Through DWPR, research
sponsors partner with Reclamation to address a broad range of desalting and water purification needs. Reclamation is
interested in research where the benefits are widespread and where private-sector entities are not able to
make the full investment and assume all the risks. Reclamation is also interested in research that has a national significance—
where the issues are of large-scale concern and the benefits accrue to a large sector of the public.
Affirmative
 2ac – Doesn’t Solve
Prohibitive cost and energy use
Ricart et. al. 21- postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Electronics, Information and
Bioengineering (Environmental Intelligence for Global Change research group and Geographer. Ph.D. in
Experimental Sciences and Sustainability at the University of Girona (Sandra, Rubén A. Villar-Navascués,
Maria Hernández-Hernández, Antonio M. Rico-Amorós, Jorge Olcina-Cantos, and Enrique Moltó-
Mantero, “Extending Natural Limits to Address Water Scarcity? The Role of Non-Conventional Water
Fluxes in Climate Change Adaptation Capacity: A Review,” Sustainability 2021, Accessed Online at
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/5/2473, Accessed Online on 7-3-21, DG)

A wide body of research has analyzed issues related to energy consumption and the desalinated water
price. An essential aspect that allows contextualizing these analyses is the intensification of the water–energy nexus derived from the use of
non-conventional water resources because most of the difference in water price between water sources is due to specific energy consumption
[111]. Despite
the energy-efficiency improvements in osmosis technology seawater desalination, energy
requirements are still much higher than those of other water sources [97,110]. A common measure of energy use is specific
energy consumption, expressed in kWh/m3 , which has been analyzed for different desalination stages and other water sources in south-east
Spain (Table 4). Variations in desalination energy consumption are due to different factors such as plant altitude, the age of the plant, the
salinity of the feed water, targeted desalinated water quality, the production capacity, the use of energy recovery systems, and the type of
membrane technology [110,112]. Additionally, further energy requirements for desalination post-treatments (boron removal), the allocation to
irrigation plots, and the on-farm specific energy consumption [113] should also be considered.

High energy consumption greatly influences the total cost of desalinated water, which can be divided into three
parts. First, capital costs, which include the amortization and financial costs related to the initial investment, and considering the lifespan
of the plant, the variable interest, and the production rate, have a significant influence on the final cost
[110,113]. Second, the operation and maintenance costs, which are the main component of the desalinated
water price, are closely related to energy consumption, and represent between 50% and 66% of the total cost [110,113].
Finally, allocation costs include both the cost of water conveyance from desalination plants to the
irrigation districts or urban water supply systems and the distribution costs [110]. Full cost analyses in the Segura River Basin
established that desalinated water costs may range between 0.63 and 0.80 €/m3 [113,114]. This price range contrasts with the average rates of
different water sources for agricultural uses in the Segura River Basin, which are 0.02–0.09 €/m3 for surface water; 0.05–0.1 €/m3 for reclaimed
water; 0.12 €/m3 for Tajo-Segura transfer; 0.16–0.42 €/m3 for groundwater; and 0.26–0.56 €/m3 for desalinated brackish water [113],
although this last water source shows high price fluctuations between plants [108,115]. Thus, the final cost of water is highly dependent on the
proportion of each water source used in the water blending. The
increase in the use of desalinated water has led to a
sustained increase in water prices. For urban users, as the MCT exemplifies, water tariffs have experienced an increase of 91%
between 2005 and 2017, from 0.36 to 0.69 €/m3 [72 ]. In the case of agricultural uses, the price that farmers paid for
desalinated water in 2017 was made up of several components (Table 5). In addition to the desalination
purchase price, irrigators pay a consumption tax, a transfer toll if water conveyance to irrigator districts requires the use
of infrastructure not owned by the plant or the irrigators, and the irrigation district rate [110].

These figures also indicate that desalinated water selling prices for farmers are lower than the full cost, which reflects both the existence of
direct and indirect subsidies, in addition to the long-term price agreements established between plants’ concessionaire companies and
irrigators before the electricity price hike in Spain set prices lower than current costs [113]. However, despite
presenting a price
lower than the cost of production, desalinated water is still the most expensive water source, which
could jeopardize crop profitability. However, profitability depends highly on the type of crop [110]. Although greenhouse crops can
cope with desalinated water costs over 0.6 €/m3 [79,116,117], the most representative crops in south-east Spain present a lower mean net
margin of water, which ranges between 0.3 €/m3 and 0.6 €/m3 , thus the price of desalinated water compromises its profitability
[110,118,119].

Worse water quality

Ricart et. al. 21- postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Electronics, Information and
Bioengineering (Environmental Intelligence for Global Change research group and Geographer. Ph.D. in
Experimental Sciences and Sustainability at the University of Girona (Sandra, Rubén A. Villar-Navascués,
Maria Hernández-Hernández, Antonio M. Rico-Amorós, Jorge Olcina-Cantos, and Enrique Moltó-
Mantero, “Extending Natural Limits to Address Water Scarcity? The Role of Non-Conventional Water
Fluxes in Climate Change Adaptation Capacity: A Review,” Sustainability 2021, Accessed Online at
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/5/2473, Accessed Online on 7-3-21, DG)

4.3.3. DesalinatedWater Quality As in the case of reclaimed water, a large number of studies have focused on
issues related to the quality of desalinated water. One of the strengths of desalination water quality is its low conductivity
values, at least in south-east Spain, where reported values are maintained between 400 and 600 µS/cm for the state-owned seawater
desalinated plants [45]. This makes it possible to expand the type of crops, especially in areas where groundwater is usually used for irrigation
[116,120], because the high levels of salinity restrict the potential crops to those less sensitive to high levels of conductivity, such as tomato
[102]. Nevertheless, brackish desalinated water may present higher salinity levels, which may produce
lower yields in the majority of crops, soil salinization, and an increase in the leachable fraction needed,
which results in greater irrigation requirements [121]. Although salt content in desalinated water is generally lower than that
in surface water, its chemical content generates some drawbacks. Reduced content of calcium, magnesium,
and sulfates may affect plant quality and crop yields, therefore, the remineralization of desalinated
water must be undertaken [113]. This issue may modify the organoleptic characteristics of the urban water supply, which can lead to
identifying a medicinal taste and bad odor in desalinated water [122]. For agricultural uses, the need for additional
fertilization when using desalinated water, which depends on the level of replacement of conventional water resources, is a
key aspect for irrigators because it increases costs and may affect farming profitability [123]. Furthermore, its
high concentration of sodium, chloride, and boron may produce phytotoxicity, affecting plant growth and crop
yields, and damaging soil structure [109]. One potential indirect effect of using desalinated water is the soil
sodicity risk, resulting in the structural collapse of soil aggregates, decreasing hydraulic conductivity, leading to
soil erosion and compaction, and decreasing aeration [113]. Another quality-related problem is the high concentration of
boron, which may cause toxicity problems for several crops, especially citrus and tree crops [109]. Some irrigation
communities have identified timing problems in long cycle citrus crops and tomato related to boron concentrations, but only in those where
desalinated water represents a high proportion of the water mix used [45]. However, in other irrigation communities that have a privately-
owned desalination plant, none of these agronomic problems in soils and crops have occurred after 20 years of using desalinated water [45].
Other studies have analyzed the short-term agronomic and economic effects of using desalinated water in citrus crops, concluding that
symptoms of toxicity were not observed, or a reduction in crop yield or fruit quality [124]. Nevertheless, theeffect of introducing
desalinated water highly depends on the quality of the replaced irrigation water and on the quality of
other water sources that may be used in the blending [113]. Finally, another relevant parameter related to
desalinated water quality is chemical stability, controlled by the alkalinity value, which measures the buffering capacity of
the water to withstand changes in pH, and the Langelier Index, which indicates the propensity of water to precipitate CaCO3 [113]. Waters
with high alkalinity are less sensitive to sudden changes in pH, resisting the addition of liquid fertilizer
solutions, which could have a positive impact on agricultural productivity and minimize corrosion and pipe rusting in distribution systems
[113]. Therefore, the possibility that desalinated water results in corrosion problems in distribution systems
may be related to acidic pH values [45]. The relevance of the control of the carbonate precipitation/dilution potential of
desalinated water relates to the potential risk that the introduction of this new water source may have in detaching
CaCO3 scales that accumulated for decades in the pipeline systems, which can affect the functioning of
valves, filters, and flowmeters [113]. However, results in south-east Spain desalination water guarantee a lack of precipitation of
new carbonate scales or the release of the existing scales.
 2ac – Desal Bad – Environment
Laundry list of environmental impacts
King 15 – former Communications Director at Heal the Bay (Matt, “5 Reasons to Be Wary of
Desalination,” Heal the Bay, 8-11-15, Accessed Online at https://healthebay.org/5-reasons-to-be-wary-
of-desalination/, Accessed Online on 7-10-21, DG)

It costs too much. The price of a gallon of water produced by a new desal plant in Carlsbad is expected to
cost twice as much as a gallon derived from recycled water, and three times or more than a gallon sourced from
groundwater storage, or conservation through programs like turf replacement rebates. For desal plants to make financial sense,
cities must agree typically to long-term contracts. Given our boom-and-bust rain cycles in California, we will surely see more deluges in years to
come. The fixed costs of desal plants won’t just go away in rainy years when their water isn’t needed. It uses too much
energy. Currently, the most energy-intensive portion of our water supply is the water that we import from Northern California
through the State Water Project and the Colorado River. That water has to travel over 600 miles to get to us, yet it still uses less energy
per gallon (though not by much) than desalinating ocean water. Desalination simply can’t compare to
relatively low-energy water supplies like groundwater or stormwater capture (or just using less water, which takes no energy at
all!) More energy means higher costs, but it also means more greenhouse gases. It kills marine life. Ocean
intakes can suck up millions of gallons of seawater daily, along with any marine life unlucky enough to be in close
proximity. Subsurface intakes extract water underneath the seabed or nearby beach and have less negative impacts to animals. But both
methods leave an enormous by-product of salty brine, a toxic by-product that is challenging to dispose of. Unfortunately,
many facilities want to use surface intakes because they can be cheaper and tend to have a greater capacity. California’s recently adopted
desalination policy mandates that facilities use subsurface intakes when possible, but we’re wary that the
desal industry will find
loopholes. It takes too long. From start to finish, getting a desalination plant up and running is at least a multi-
year process. Construction on the Carlsbad plant started in 2012, and isn’t expected to be completed until later this year – and that
doesn’t take into account all the planning and design that had to happen as well. This drought is happening
now, and it’s just a simple fact that desalination can’t start quickly enough to help. And as crazy as it seems right now, in a
year or two, we may be out of the drought, especially with forecasters predicting El Nino conditions. We don’t want to commit ourselves to
spending over a billion dollars on something that we may not even need by the time it’s completed. It eclipses better options. The
Carlsbad plant, which is the largest plant in the Western hemisphere, can only produce about 7% of San Diego’s water supply! How about we
use that billion dollars to cut down our water usage by that percentage instead? Let’s invest
in proven processes that are more
efficient, take less money and have much less negative impacts on the environment. Instead of building desal
plants, we should be investing in facilities that capture and reuse of urban runoff, as well as fast-tracking the recycling of highly treated
wastewater from Hyperion and other plants.
 1ar – Desal Bad – Environment
Huge environmental impact – kills marine life
TRT World 21- TRT World News (“Is desalination the answer to global freshwater scarcity?,” TRT
World, 1-25-21, Accessed Online at https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/is-desalination-the-answer-to-
global-freshwater-scarcity-43561, Accessed Online on 7-10-21, DG)

In addition to its monetary costs, the detrimental environmental impact associated with desalination
technologies is also an issue. First, both kinds of desalination, particularly thermal desalination, require a lot of energy. In
Gulf countries, this energy is supplied through fossil fuels, which lead to the emission of greenhouse gases,
contributing to global warming. There is a new movement toward solar-powered desalination, and other renewable sources to meet
the energy demand. Second, desalination produces excess brine - about 1.5 litres of brine for every 1 litre of
freshwater produced - as well as toxic contaminants from the desalination process, which is usually dumped back
into the ocean. When not done properly, it creates a high-salinity environment. Alongside increased
temperatures in certain areas, this process decreases the oxygen in the water, killing marine life, and
affecting the food chain. As time goes on, the increasingly salty water will also be more expensive to turn into
freshwater. Third, sucking of seawater can also cause marine organisms to get caught in the intake screen,
and injured or killed as a result. For these reasons, according to some experts, it’s eventually going to become
impossible to use, and economically unviable, particularly for Gulf states, where it is most heavily used.

Brine from desalination creates dead zones

Sullivan 19- Freelance Journalist (Kathryn DeMuth, “Desalination plants producing more toxic brine,”
LabRoots, 1-21-19, Accessed Online at https://www.labroots.com/trending/earth-and-the-
environment/13855/desalination-plants-producing-toxic-brine, Accessed Online on 7-10-21, DG)

A study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment suggests that desalinationplants are releasing too much salt
effluent, a toxic by-product of the desalination process. The research, which comes from a collaboration of scientists around
the world, highlighted the excess production of the brine effluent , saying that plants are generating 50%
more of the substance than had previously been reported. As desalination technology has expanded due to the lack of
available fresh water posed by climate change, several countries in particular have accelerated their dependence on desalination – in turn
threatening their nations and surrounding ones with the question of what to do with the toxic brine by-product. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab
Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar together account for over half of globally produced desalination brine by-product (Saudi Arabia standing by itself
produces 22% of the effluent). Other countries, like the Maldives, Malta and the Bahamas, are totally dependent on desalination for all of their
fresh water. There are roughly 16,000 desalination plants currently operating globally throughout 177 countries. Though the fresh water that
these plants generate is life-saving, the consequence is the brine effluent that the process produces. Brine is
basically hot, very salty water laced with chemicals and other various contaminants. It is often pumped back into the
ocean or river that the sea water was initially taken from after the desalination process is complete. Brine is very dangerous to
marine life - its hyper-salinity can kill fish and other marine animals. "The salt level in the seawater is
further increased because of this disposal of the concentrate brine," said study author Dr. Manzoor Qadir from the UN University
Institute for Water, Environment and Health. "There is an increase in the temperature of this zone of the sea, together they
decrease the dissolved oxygen level, which is called hypoxia and that impacts the aquatic life in that zone." "High
salinity and reduced dissolved oxygen levels can have profound impacts on benthic organisms, which can
translate into ecological effects observable throughout the food chain ," added lead author Edward Jones. The
problem, say the researchers, is that older desalination plants that use reverse-osmosis technology can produce up
to two liters of brine for every liter of fresh water. Dumping such a large quantity of brine can create dead zones
in oceans, a symptom that is already exacerbated by climate change.
Carbon emissions and brine
UNEP 21- UN Environmental Programme (“Five things to know about desalination,” UNEP, 1-11-21,
Accessed Online at https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/five-things-know-about-desalination,
Accessed Online on 7-10-21, DG)

More and more people in water-scarce countries rely on desalinated water for drinking, cooking and washing. The
process involves removing salt from seawater and filtering it to produce drinking quality water. But the
fossil fuels normally used in the energy-intensive desalination process contribute to global warming, and
the toxic brine it produces pollutes coastal ecosystems. While shifting towards low-carbon energy sources to power desalination
plants can help reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the discharge of toxic brine from desalination plants into the ocean is a more
challenging problem. “New technologies are being developed to tackle these issues, but in the meantime it’s important to raise
awareness of the trade-offs with desalination,” says Birguy Lamizana, a wastewater expert with the United Nations
Environment Programme (UNEP). Here are five things to know about desalination: It’s a booming business. A 2018 United Nations study says
there are now almost 16,000 desalination plants operating in 177 countries, producing a volume of freshwater equivalent to almost half the
average flow over the Niagara Falls. Several countries, such as Bahamas, Maldives and Malta, meet all their water needs
through the desalination process. Saudi Arabia (population 34 million) gets about 50 per cent of its drinking water from
desalination. In most desalination processes, for every litre of potable water produced, about 1.5 litres of liquid
polluted with chlorine and copper are created. This wastewater (“concentrate”) is twice as saline as ocean water. If not
properly diluted and dispersed, it may form a dense plume of toxic brine which can degrade coastal and marine
ecosystems unless treated. Increased salinity and temperature can cause a decrease in the dissolved oxygen content and
contribute to the formation of “dead zones”, where very few marine animals can live.
 AT NB – Links to Politics
Desalination gets caught up political bickering – previous bills prove
Langlois 16- correspondent at High Country News (Krista, “How the feds can ensure Western states
get more water in 2016,” High Country News, 1-8-16, Accessed Online at
https://www.hcn.org/articles/how-the-feds-can-ensure-western-states-get-more-water-in-2016,
Accessed Online on 7-9-21, DG)

This summer, as California was struggling through its fourth and most severe year of drought, two California
Congressmen unveiled legislation meant to ease the pain. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) and Rep. David Valadao (R) introduced,
respectively, the California Emergency Drought Relief Act of 2015 and the Western Water and American Food Security Act of 2015. Though
both are aimed primarily at their home state, the bills’ scope is West-wide. Both, for example, seek more federal money for new water storage
and infrastructure projects. Both would expedite environmental review of those projects, and maximize water supply for farms and
communities. And both “contain provisions that could alter the implementation of the Endangered Species Act and, in some cases, potentially
set a precedent for how federal agencies address endangered and threatened species,” according to the Congressional Research Service. Those
precedents include limiting federal agencies’ ability to manage stream flows for endangered fish. Beyond these similarities, the bills take wildly
different paths. Feinstein’s (preferred by environmentalists) focuses
on water recycling and desalination; Valadeo’s on
squeezing more from rivers. Still, as summer stretched into fall with little relief for sun-blasted California, there was hope the two
could find common ground. More than 100 farm groups and water authorities signed a letter in October asking Congress
to compromise. Environmental groups — despite their opposition to the endangered species implications — agreed something needed to
be done. Yet the year ended without any such progress. Not only were Feinstein and Valadao’s bills caught up
in political bickering, Congress also failed to pass any of the six or so other drought relief bills introduced by
Western lawmakers. And Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, chair of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, never introduced the
comprehensive drought package she’d hinted at. On January 11, the Senate reconvenes. Despite El Niño’s snow and rain, the drought will
march on. Lawmakers in 2016 will be faced with the same challenges they failed to address in 2015: securing water for agriculture and
communities. Planning for a drier, more populous future. Protecting water-dependent fish and wildlife. Will they do any better? Jimmy Hague,
director of the Center for Water Resources with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, is skeptical. If Congress wasn’t able to reach
a compromise in 2015, why would 2016 — with the added challenges of an election year — be any different ?
“It is really difficult to
get consensus on water legislation,” Hague says. “All the controversy between those two bills still exists,
and now we’ve added a presidential election year on top of it.” Nonetheless, Hague thinks that Western water woes will get a helping hand
from the feds in 2016. That’s because there are at least 20 measures that agencies can implement without Congressional action. Many were
detailed in a list of recommendations that the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Trout Unlimited and The Nature Conservancy
submitted to the White House last summer — around the same time that Feinstein and Valadeo were unveiling their bills. Compared to the
controversial congressional legislation, the list didn’t exactly grab headlines. While legislation calls for desalination
plants and dam-building, the conservation groups’ ideas include things like allowing the Internal Revenue Service to include “water
donations” as a tax write-off, or encouraging the Bureau of Reclamation to fill and draw down reservoirs based on actual conditions rather than
set-in-stone calendar dates.
Water Quality CP – Constructed Wetlands
Negative
 1nc – CP Shell
The United States federal government should substantially increase its construction of
constructed wetlands including use of multi-objective management, integrated
watershed management, and accurate simulation of natural wetlands in its
construction of constructed wetlands.

That solves – balances water treatment with biodiversity conservation.

Chengxiang Zhang et al., 1-14-2020, [works at the School of Nature Conservation at the Beijing
Forestry University, "Can Constructed Wetlands be Wildlife Refuges? A Review of Their Potential
Biodiversity Conservation Value", MDPI, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/4/1442 //Weese]

6.1. Multi-Objective Management of CWs

Currently, the design and management of CWs tend to target one—or, at most, two—aspects of their multiple
functions [147]. As the biological, biochemical, and hydrological characteristics of CWs are spatially and temporally complicated, the lack
of an integrative approach may lead to conflicts between different stakeholders . One key conflict is
between pollution control managers and biodiversity conservation practitioners . For example, Hansson et al.
(2005) showed that CWs with shallow depths, large surface areas and high shoreline complexities can maintain the high biodiversity of birds,
benthic invertebrates, and macrophytes, but have lower phosphorus removal rates in comparison with small, deep CWs [51]. The
multi-
objective management of CWs, integrating their multiple ecological functions (e.g., wastewater treatment,
biodiversity maintenance, climate regulation and flood mitigation) is necessary to balance different stakeholder values and
this must be implemented from the initial design stage. Instead of the traditional ‘cost-efficiency’ approach, a multi-criteria
decision analysis based on the full understanding of regional ecological issues and needs is necessary for CW management. Such a
multi-criteria decision analysis approach can reflect the whole spectrum of opinions of all stakeholders who may express a preference for the
co-benefits of management options and helps decision-makers identify key areas of disagreement [148].

6.2. Integrated Watershed Management

Wetlands are sinks of non-point source pollutants in watersheds and, as such, the necessity, position, and
scale of CWs should be determined by the pollution loading patterns and land use within a watershed
[149]. To balance the benefits of contaminant purification and biodiversity maintenance , it is necessary to treat
terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems as a unified whole (within an integrated watershed management strategy) when deciding where CWs should
be constructed [150]. Ecosystem
management at the watershed scale would be more effective than at the site level for
biodiversity conservation, because watershed-scale approaches may help attract organisms’ high-quality
natural habitats instead of CWs, thus addressing the ‘ecological trap’. Furthermore, network approaches, such
as enhancing the connections between CWs and adjacent natural ecosystems, especially through establishing a relatively complete food web,
could alleviate the biotoxicity effects of CWs on wildlife through biodilution [151].

6.3. Accurate Simulation of Natural Wetlands

As our understanding of the structure and processes of natural wetland ecosystems continues to increase, CWs
with more natural
wetland characteristics and those encourage biodiversity conservation should become more feasible. Integrated
constructed wetlands, characterized by complex habitat mosaics, can maximize the potential for enhancing
macroinvertebrate diversity [152]. Quasi-natural riparian zones that have a high species richness and abundance could be built
through hydrological regime regulation and elevation modification. The utilization of indigenous plant
species in CWs (based on baseline surveys before they are built) is also an effective option to maintain local biodiversity,
and can reduce the risk of exotic species invasion. The value of long-term observation and comparative studies on the multiple ecological
functions of CWs and natural wetlands cannot be underestimated, especially given that vegetation succession in CWs and the associated faunal
turnover can be rapid. Indeed, the temporal dynamics of biological communities in CWs can have complicated implications for both pollutant
removal and biodiversity conservation [153,154].
 2nc Solves – General Water Quality
Constructed wetlands solve a laundry list of water quality problems.
Falon French and Katie Zettel, 2018, [Falon French is the Law Enforcement Academy Coordinator at
the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and has a master’s degree in water resource
management. Katie Zettel is an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison pursuing a
degree in Plant Pathology, "Constructed Wetlands: The Benefits and Trade-offs of Agricultural Runoff.",
UWMadison, https://kb.wisc.edu/dairynutrient/375fsc/page.php?id=80717 //Weese]

Environmental Impact of Agriculture After years of manure and fertilizer application to our soils, the nutrients that we try to
incorporate into our agriculture is washed away by runoff into streams and lakes. While the amount lost varies due to several
variables, animal agriculture is known to cause excess nutrient pollution, causing degraded water quality
and eutrophication. Relationship Between Agriculture and Wetlands Until recently, wetlands were viewed as wasted space. In order to
convert this area into something with clear economic value, many wetlands have been drained and filled. According to the
NRCS (1995) wetlands were lost primarily to development, agriculture, and deep water habitat. Recently, scientific studies have increasingly
emphasized the importance of wetlands, which can help control water flow during heavy rain and flooding. This is
especially important in agricultural fields, where uncontrolled streaming can be detrimental yields. Wetlands can store excess
water, organic matter, and nutrients (Brix, 1995). However, agriculture can be harmful to natural wetlands as excess nutrients and
sediment can alter native vegetation and macroinvertebrates, which are crucial to systematic functions (DeLaney, 1995). Use
of constructed wetlands could not only mitigate agricultural runoff: It can also protect natural wetlands
and the services they provide, but the efficiency of constructed wetlands for agriculture depends on factors such as soil type,
fertilization patterns, crops and wetland vegetation, and the local climate, and location in the watershed (Comin et al., 2014). Other Best
Management Practices There are many management practices that save farmers time and money while trying to avoid these externalities.
Many practices aim to prevent soil erosion, protect water quality, preserve topsoil, and nutrients for future
crops. While these practices focus on holding soil in place, other management practices aim to capture soil once erosion has occurred. There
are three main management practices that are designed to reduce sedimentation. Constructed wetlands, the focus of this paper, are
one of the recommended methods of capturing sediment, nutrients, and other contaminants. Filter strips and grassed
waterways perform many of the same functions as constructed wetlands, so they will be used here for comparison. Filter Strips/Buffer Strips
Buffer strips and filter strips are used to slow surface water runoff in order to allow for greater infiltration and sediment deposition However,
under high flow conditions, they are generally not able to remove sediments or dissolved phosphorus (Lewandowski et al., 2015, Uusi-Kamppa
et al., 2000). Grassed Waterways Grassed waterways utilize dense perennial vegetation grass to route, slow, and drain what would be
concentrated water flowage through fields. This disrupts the process of soil eroding into gullies, and filters nutrients from water that would
otherwise run off into farmland streams (Lewandowski et al., 2015). Wetlands Wetlands serve a key function in connecting
land and water ecosystems. They regulate high water conditions and excessive runoff, to weaken the effects
these ecosystems can have on one another. They provide numerous services such as water filtration and storage, provide
habitat for native species, and an aesthetically pleasing green space( Everard et al., 2012, Brix, 1995, DeLaney, 1995). Wetlands can
also supply ecosystem services, the most obvious being water treatment. Constructed wetlands have been shown to
remove suspended solids, stabilizing dissolved oxygen and biological oxygen demand (BOD) in the water, and
reduce the nutrient levels in runoff (Cronk, 1996). This paper focuses on constructed wetlands that are “intentionally created from
nonwetland sites to produce or replace natural habitat” (Brix, 1995). Natural wetlands are not suited for the
concentrated runoff of agriculture fields. A constructed wetland system is designed for greater ability of
water treatment and to protect existing natural wetlands by taking on water with higher concentrated
runoff. On their own, due to high levels of sedimentation, constructed wetlands can need maintenance and dredging, which can be costly. So,
recent designs have focused on developing integrated constructed wetland (ICW) systems which could provide
numerous ecosystem services while also mitigating the impacts of wastewater on singular constructed
wetlands by allowing for filtration through multiple basins. Methods In order to compare both ecological and economical
costs and benefits, we conducted a literary analysis of previously published material on this subject. We researched an expansive amount of
peer-reviewed and academically published journals and articles that describe various results of the systematic impact of constructed wetlands.
The studies were specifically chosen because they highlight two important factors: Benefits and impacts, and performance. Benefits and
Impacts The articles chosen provide a representative sample of the impacts of constructed wetlands. Multiple studies claiming a variety of
benefits and detriments of wetlands were compiled and compared to one another in order to provide potential supporting proof of the studies
achieving desired impacts. Performance The studies also demonstrate the differences in performance under various seasonal and spatial
scenarios. We focus on studies in multiple different ecoregions, and also identified results differentiating between the effects of irrigated versus
non-irrigated field discharge nutrient concentrations. To complete our comparative analysis of the costs and benefits considering these two
factors we reference 20
peer-reviewed studies that identify several specific variables. We aim to describe provide general
benefits that could be seen across different types of communities and ecoregions shown in Table 2.

They’re key to water quality.

Mike Burchell and Bill Hunt, 2-19-19, [Mike Burchell is an Associate Professor of Biological &
Agricultural Engineering and North Carolina State University. Bill Hunt Professor of Biological &
Agricultural Engineering and North Carolina State University, "Natural and Constructed Wetlands in
North Carolina: An Overview for Citizens", NC State, https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/natural-and-
constructed-wetlands-in-north-carolina //Weese]

Constructed Wetlands Alongside natural wetlands in the landscape, there

are an increasing number of wetlands that have
been built to replace lost natural wetlands, as well as many wetlands that were built to intercept polluted runoff
and wastewater to protect water quality. In this section, we define the different types of constructed wetlands. Wetland
restoration and creation Figure 4 shows how natural wetlands can be in pristine condition (which is rare), degraded (like most of
our remaining natural wetlands), or destroyed. Wetlands are considered as degraded when they have suffered at least some minor degree
of alteration to water flow, vegetation, or pollution. Wetlands can be destroyed by draining or filling for development (including roads,
shopping centers, housing developments, agriculture, and forestry) or by natural disasters like fire. Wetlands that are impacted by development
are required by law to be rebuilt elsewhere. In North Carolina, that process is overseen by the NCDEQ and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Sometimes, wetlands that were degraded or destroyed long ago are also rebuilt through efforts from many national and state conservation
groups (like the NC Coastal Federation). Rebuilding degraded or destroyed wetlands to achieve the original wetland type and
functions is called wetland restoration. Restoration is generally the preferred method of replacing lost wetlands. To successfully
rebuild a wetland, the hydrology (how wet it is) and the structure (soil types and vegetation community) first must be accurately estimated
from similar nearby natural wetlands. Careful planning and understanding of the type of wetland to be built is crucial for the long-term
development and success of restored wetlands. Wetland restorations often require some combination of earth moving, changes in water
management (like plugging drainage ditches), and replanting of desired wetland plant species. An example of these restoration techniques was
demonstrated in 2003 at a Carteret County site that had been previously converted from a wetland to row-crop agriculture by draining and
clearing the land in the 1970s (Figure 5). In some instances, it might make sense to build a different type of wetland than the one that was
originally on a site because the surrounding landscape or downstream water body will benefit from a different habitat or function (such as
water quality improvement). A project to build a wetland of a different type than the original or in a location where a wetland may not have
been present before is called wetland creation. The prototypes of created wetlands are still natural wetlands, and even more careful planning is
critical to ensure a successful project. Such was the case at the North River Farms Preserve, which was previously converted from a shrub-scrub
wetland to row-crop agriculture. Project partners decided to create a highly productive salt marsh rather than restore the estuarine shrub-scrub
wetland that had been drained for agriculture (Figure 6). Wetlands constructed to improve water quality Natural
wetlands have been studied for decades for their ability to capture and transform many pollutants. In the correct landscape
position, wetlands have been shown to intercept surface and groundwater and slowly release it over time .
This interception allows particles of soil or debris to settle out and accumulate in the wetlands, releasing
visibly cleaner water. Wetlands also can trap sediment-bound pollutants, like excess metals and phosphorous.
Vegetation often grows readily and accumulates over time in wetlands, creating an environment that is high in organic matter
and microbial activity. Alternating wetting and drying creates unique oxygen conditions in a wetland that stimulates
microorganisms within to transform many pollutants in order to survive. For example, nitrate, which is a common form
of nitrogen fertilizer often found in runoff, can pollute rivers and lakes. But when intercepted by wetlands, nitrate can be
used by certain microorganisms instead of oxygen to survive when wetlands are flooded. As the water passes through
the wetlands, the nitrate is transformed by the microbes into nitrogen gas that escapes to the atmosphere (the process is called denitrification),
and the water leaving the wetland is less polluted. We now try to take advantage of the unique abilities of natural
wetlands by constructing wetlands in strategic locations to intercept and treat polluted water.
Stormwater runoff from developed urban areas can deliver significant amounts of water, often flowing at high velocity,
directly to local streams or other water bodies. Constructed wetlands have been increasingly used over the last two decades to
slow and store some of that water, much like natural wetlands do. These wetlands used in urban areas are known as
stormwater wetlands and are one of several measures used by towns to reduce the effect of stormwater runoff. Wetlands not only slow
runoff, but research shows they also store sediment and debris, trap phosphorous and metals, and reduce the
amount of nitrogen transported downstream. The design of these stormwater wetlands is based mostly on natural
depressional wetlands with emergent (meaning rooted in the soil but can survive in ponded conditions) and floating herbaceous aquatic
vegetation. Stormwater wetlands are referred to as “event-based” wetlands because they are designed to fill with water only after rainfall and
to drain nearly completely within two to four days. They are often located in high visibility areas, such as near shopping centers, schools, and
parks, and contain multiple varieties of wetland plants that can withstand wetting and drying periods. The plants in stormwater wetlands often
include flowering varieties that can provide an aesthetically pleasing amenity to the landscape (Figure 7). Stormwater wetlands are built to help
towns meet requirements for their stormwater management plans, or in other locations through conservation grants intended to enhance local
water quality. Since 2007, NCDEQ estimates that nearly 90 stormwater wetlands were permitted to be used to treat stormwater in North
Carolina. The total number of stormwater wetlands operating here is likely well over 125, including those built by conservation groups for local
water-quality improvements. These wetlands are typically less than an acre, but a notable exception is a 30-acre stormwater wetland
constructed in 2013 in New Bern. Wetlands can also be used to help treat more high strength municipal and industrial
process wastewaters. These wetlands are known as treatment wetlands and are less common here when compared to stormwater
wetlands. Treatment wetlands provide critical treatment of more polluted wastewater as part of an
overall treatment plan for wastewater at several towns (including Walnut Cove and Aurora) and as part of other
agricultural and waste management facilities. These wetlands are also designed and constructed to emulate emergent
marshes but have deeper water and more steady flow that is not rainfall-dependent. These wetlands generally contain only one or two species
of plants because these plants must be able to tolerate deeper water and higher pollutant concentrations. Treatment wetlands are not typically
in locations that are visible to the public, so aesthetics is not an important component of their design. On average, treatment wetlands are
generally larger than stormwater wetlands, such as the 4.5-acre treatment wetlands in Walnut Cove. These wetlands provide final treatment of
the town’s wastewater before discharging to a nearby stream (Figure 8). As of 2018, less than 10 treatment wetlands were operating in North
Carolina. It is important to remember that these constructed wetlands for stormwater and wastewater treatment should not be confused with
restored wetlands. Stormwater and treatment wetlands are not designed and constructed with the goal to replace lost wetland
functions. Rather, these wetlands are constructed to provide key water quality benefits, often in places or
landscape settings where natural wetlands did not previously exist.

Wetland organisms ensure success.

Chengxiang Zhang et al., 1-14-2020, [works at the School of Nature Conservation at the Beijing
Forestry University, "Can Constructed Wetlands be Wildlife Refuges? A Review of Their Potential
Biodiversity Conservation Value", MDPI, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/4/1442 //Weese]

3.3. Spatial-Temporal Characteristics of the Biodiversity Benefits of CWs Constructed

wetlands are generally very efficient at
removing contaminants, although this can vary between types of CWs, wastewater sources, and operational conditions [68–70]. As a
result of their contaminant removal effects, CWs can reduce the concentration of pollutants in the surrounding
environment, thus reducing the negative effects of environmental pollution on wildlife and providing a
relatively suitable habitat for wildlife [71]. At the same time, CWs increase landscape heterogeneity and
ecological diversity within river basins. Eutrophic CWs, along with oligotrophic downstream environments, contribute to the
maintenance of regional biodiversity [72]. Moreover, the unequal purification effect of CWs, with respect to different contaminants, can change
regional stoichiometric characteristics, thus having potential impacts on regional biodiversity [73,74]. With high concentrations of pollutants,
CW plant communities are often dominated by a small number of tolerant species, which means an inevitable reduction in plant biodiversity
over time, despite having initially high biodiversity [75,76]. For example, Saggaï et al. (2017) reports that 72% of the plant species initially used
in a CW were lost after eight years of operation because of environmental constraints and pressure from interspecific competition [77]. The
surviving plants in this community were predominantly monocot species with C4 or C4-like photosynthetic pathways. Research in wetlands in
Ohio, USA, also shows that the integrity of vegetation communities based on floristic quality is lower in wetlands with higher concentrations of
plant-available phosphorus [78]. 4. Biodiversity Enhances the Treatment Efficiency of CWs 4.1. Microorganisms Dominate Contaminant
Removal The efficiency of wastewater purification in CWs depends on a variety of processes, such as precipitation, abiotic adsorption by
sediments and other substrates, biotic uptake by plants and microorganisms, nitrification and denitrification, and biodegradation and
photodegradation (in the case of polymeric pollutants). Wetland
organisms, especially microorganisms, have significant impacts
on the purification function of CWs because they are the main participants in many contaminant-removal
processes, such as nitrification and denitrification, and organic pollutant degradation . They can also promote
phosphorus removal processes by forming biofilms that enhance the phosphorus adsorption capacity of
the substrate. Furthermore, microbial communities are highly efficient in the transformation of complex
contaminants [79]. Environmental factors, such as temperature, pH, and dissolved oxygen concentration, have significant impacts on the
abundance, diversity, and community structure of microorganism communities, which, in turn, dramatically affect pollutant removal processes.
For example, ammonia-oxidizing bacteria prefer aerobic environments, while denitrifying bacteria are favored under anaerobic conditions [25].
A large number of studies show that appropriate management approaches (e.g., the addition of external carbon sources and
intermittent aeration) can enhance contaminant removal efficiency by promoting microbial growth and
reproduction, and by increasing the microbial community diversity and richness of CWs [12,46]. 4.2.
Vegetation Has Multiple Effects on Treatment Efficiency of CWs Plants are the most commonly used biological elements in the construction
and management of CWs, and play important roles in pollutant removal, both directly and indirectly, through stimulating
microbial growth. Numerous studies have shown that the indirect roles of plants (e.g., increases in hydraulic retention time,
creation of aerobic–anaerobic micro-zones, decreases in the resuspension of contaminants in sediments) are substantial, while their
direct role is usually limited [80–84]. In particular, effective plant–bacteria relationships can successfully remove a large
number of contaminants in wastewater, including a variety of biotoxic substances (e.g., heavy metals and
antibiotics). [85–90]. Studies about the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem function (BEF) generally focus on the primary
productivity of grasslands and forests [91]. Both experimental studies and field research have demonstrated the tendency of ecosystem
functions to be enhanced as biodiversity increases [92,93]. Furthermore, the effect of biodiversity on ecological function is strengthened over
time relative to other abiotic factors [94]. Some mechanisms have been hypothesized to explain the positive effects of increasing species
richness on ecosystem functions, including complementarity effects (i.e., the synergistic effects of biodiversity through resource partitioning or
facilitation) and selection effects (i.e., the chance that one dominant and highly productive species increases with increasing species richness)
[95–97].

Constructed Wetlands create shallow water ecosystems and remove pollutants and
pathogens
Larry Cooper 4/2/19 (Larry Cooper, Author at Probiotic Solutions “Do Constructed Wetlands Improve
Water Quality” Probiotic Solutions https://probiotic.com/2019/04/constructed-wetlands/)//evw

Constructed wetlands, which mimic natural wetlands, treat municipal and industrial wastewater, mine
drainage, small business and household greywater, animal wastes, and agricultural and stormwater
runoff. They are recommended by regulatory agencies as a best management practice to control urban
runoff. Shallow Water Ecosystems Constructed wetlands are shallow-water ecosystems that mimic
natural wetlands. The wetland ecosystem—water, plants, microorganisms, sunlight, substrate, and air—
filters and treats wastewater. Water quality is improved through physical, biological, and chemical
processes, and the risk of pollution from runoff is reduced. Surface or subsurface water is present in
both constructed and natural wetlands. Constructed wetlands are also called artificial wetlands,
engineered wetlands, man-made wetlands, greywater wetlands, reed beds, soil infiltration beds, or
treatment wetlands. Pollutants and Pathogens Are Removed Treatment through constructed wetlands
removes pollutants, organic matter, metals, hydrocarbons, nitrogen, phosphorus. A variety of pathogens
is also removed, although wetlands are not specifically designed to do so. In addition, high organic loads,
as found in agricultural wastewater, can be reduced from wetland treated wastewater. Some
wastewaters are treated exclusively by constructed wetlands. Generally, however, wastewater influent
enters the wetland after primary treatment that separates solids from liquids. As such, wetlands serve
as a secondary or tertiary treatment, sanitizing effluent prior to water reclamation. Wetland
Construction Wetlands are constructed inside a basin that is lined with plastic, concrete, or clay. The
filter is a substrate of sand and gravel. The shallow depth, slow flow, and saturated substrates in
wetlands encourages settling. Vegetation—such as bulrushes, reeds, cattails, and duckweed—is vital to
the removal of metals and other pollutants. Heavy metal uptake varies among plants. Plant roots and
rhizomes loosen substrate medium, increasing water movement through the rhizosphere. Water is
channeled through holes in the substrate caused by decaying plant roots. The Treatment Process
Treatment occurs as wastewater flows through the substrate and the rhizosphere. The slow flow allows
longer periods of contact between wastewater and wetland surfaces. A diverse community of aerobic
and anaerobic microorganisms is attracted to the organic/inorganic materials and the opportunities for
gas/water interchanges. Microorganisms attach to roots and rhizomes, forming a biofilm that breaks
down pollutants and organic matter. Nutrients–carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus–provided by plant
litter and decomposing plants feed the microbial process. In the substrate, suspended solids are filtered
out of the wastewater and pathogens are removed by filtration and adsorption. The saturated substrate
creates an oxygen-deprived environment in which oxygen is consumed more rapidly than it is replaced.
This low-oxygen environment prevents the growth of plants unfit for a wetland environment. The low-
oxygen environment is also essential to the elimination of pollutants. Nitrogen is broken down and
nitrogen gas is released harmlessly into the atmosphere. Phosphorus is collected and stored within a
wetland system by binding phosphorus in organic matter or by coprecipitation with iron, aluminum, and
calcium. Likewise, heavy metals are sequestered in the substrate or absorbed by plants.

Constructed Wetlands improve water quality and support wildlife habitats

EPA 2004 (United States Environmental Protection Agency “Constructed Treatment Wetlands”
https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi/30005UPS.PDF?Dockey=30005UPS.PDF)//evw

Natural wetland systems have often been described as the “earth’s kidneys” because they filter
pollutants from water that flows through on its way to receiving lakes, streams and oceans. Because
these systems can improve water quality, engineers and scientists construct systems that replicate the
functions of natural wetlands. Constructed wetlands are treatment systems that use natural processes
involving wetland vegetation, soils, and their associated microbial assemblages to improve water
quality. How do treatment wetlands work? Natural wetlands perform many functions that are beneficial
to both humans and wildlife. One of their most important functions is water filtration. As water flows
through a wetland, it slows down and many of the suspended solids become trapped by vegetation and
settle out. Other pollutants are transformed to less soluble forms taken up by plants or become inactive.
Wetland plants also foster the necessary conditions for microorganisms to live there. Through a series of
complex processes, these microorganisms also transform and remove pollutants from the water.
Nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorous, are deposited into wetlands from stormwater runoff, from
areas where fertilizers or manure have been applied and from leaking septic fields. These excess
nutrients are often absorbed by wetland soils and taken up by plants and microorganisms. For example,
wetland microbes can convert organic nitrogen into useable, inorganic forms (NO3 and NH4 ) that are
necessary for plant growth and into gasses that escape to the atmosphere. Why build them? Wetlands
are some of the most biologically diverse and productive natural ecosystems in the world. While not all
constructed wetlands replicate natural ones, it makes sense to construct wetlands that improve water
quality and support wildlife habitat. Constructed wetlands can also be a cost-effective and technically
feasible approach to treating wastewater. Wetlands are often less expensive to build than traditional
wastewater treatment options, have low operating and maintenance expenses and can handle
fluctuating water levels. Additionally, they are aesthetically pleasing and can reduce or eliminate odors
associated with wastewater. How are they built? Constructed wetlands are generally built on uplands
and outside floodplains or floodways in order to avoid damage to natural wetlands and other aquatic
resources. Wetlands are frequently constructed by excavating, backfilling, grading, diking and installing
water control structures to establish desired hydraulic flow patterns. If the site has highly permeable
soils, an impervious, compacted clay liner is usually installed and the original soil placed over the liner.
Wetland vegetation is then planted or allowed to establish naturally.
 2nc Solves – Ag Run-off
Constructed wetlands increase yields while capturing harmful run-off
Falon French and Katie Zettel, 2018, [Falon French is the Law Enforcement Academy Coordinator at
the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and has a master’s degree in water resource
management. Katie Zettel is an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison pursuing a
degree in Plant Pathology, "Constructed Wetlands: The Benefits and Trade-offs of Agricultural Runoff.",
UWMadison, https://kb.wisc.edu/dairynutrient/375fsc/page.php?id=80717 //Weese]
Relationship Between Agriculture and Wetlands Until recently, wetlands were viewed as wasted space. In order to convert this area into
something with clear economic value, many wetlands have been drained and filled. According to the NRCS (1995) wetlands
were lost primarily to development, agriculture, and deep water habitat. Recently, scientific studies have increasingly emphasized the
importance of wetlands, which can
help control water flow during heavy rain and flooding. This is especially
important in agricultural fields, where uncontrolled streaming can be detrimental yields. Wetlands can
store excess water, organic matter, and nutrients (Brix, 1995). However, agriculture can be harmful to natural wetlands as
excess nutrients and sediment can alter native vegetation and macroinvertebrates, which are crucial to systematic functions (DeLaney, 1995).
Use of constructedwetlands could not only mitigate agricultural runoff: It can also protect natural wetlands and the
services they provide, but the efficiency of constructed wetlands for agriculture depends on factors such as soil type, fertilization
patterns, crops and wetland vegetation, and the local climate, and location in the watershed (Comin et al., 2014). Other Best Management
Practices There are many management practices that save farmers time and money while trying to avoid
these externalities. Many practices aim to prevent soil erosion, protect water quality, preserve topsoil, and
nutrients for future crops. While these practices focus on holding soil in place, other management practices aim to capture soil once
erosion has occurred. There are three main management practices that are designed to reduce sedimentation. Constructed wetlands,
the focus of this paper, are one of the recommended methods of capturing sediment, nutrients, and other contaminants.
Filter strips and grassed waterways perform many of the same functions as constructed wetlands, so they will be used here for comparison.

Constructed wetlands solve agricultural runoff and biodiversity.

Dr. Li Wen et al. 20. Adjunct professor at Beijing Forestry University. Chengxiang Zhang, PhD
candidate at Beijing Forestry University. Yan Zhou, researcher at the Co-Innovation Center for
Sustainable Forestry. "Can Constructed Wetlands be Wildlife Refuges? A Review of Their Potential
Biodiversity Conservation Value." MDPI. 2-15-2020. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/4/1442.
accessed 6-22-2021 //ART
*CW = constructed wetland

The loss and degradation of natural wetlands have forced wetland-dependent species to increasingly use and colonize sub-optimal habitats, including CWs [18]. At
the same time, the creation
of these artificial ecosystems—originally built to treat agricultural runoff or
municipal wastewater—is becoming more and more popular worldwide [33,34]. As a result, CWs offset the
ecological consequences of natural wetland loss to some extent [35]. Constructed wetlands can be divided into surface flow CWs
(SFCWs), subsurface flow CWs (SSFCWs), and hybrid systems, according to the differences in how water is introduced and distributed within the system [36–38].
Subsurface flow CWs can further be divided into horizontal subsurface flow (HF) and vertical flow (VF) CWs [39]. In recent years, some new types of CWs, such as
floating treatment wetlands (FTWs), bio-ecological A2O-wetland systems and microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have been developed to enhance the treatment efficiency
of CWs [40–42]. The
importance of CWs in biodiversity maintenance is highlighted given their relatively small
areas and the high richness and abundance of species that they support [43,44]. Indeed, studies on species–area
relationships demonstrate that a collection of small habitat patches contain more species than single, large habitats with the same total area [45]. Low-level
management approaches, such as regular dredging or harvesting, are required to maintain the purification function of CWs [46,47]. These actions are considered to
cause intermediate disturbances to ecosystems, which could also promote biodiversity through the regulation of the dominant species [48,49]. 3.2. Empirical

Studies Confirm the Biodiversity Benefits of CWs Many studies have been undertaken on the biodiversity of existing CWs, including
plants, freshwater invertebrates, amphibians, and birds (Table 1). These studies collectively show that CWs can provide significant
and biologically valuable habitats for wildlife, promote the dispersal of aquatic biotas, and support
higher-level organisms, including fish and migratory birds [19,21]. Many factors, both environmental and biotic, govern
biodiversity in CWs [50]. Environmental factors directly determine the occurrence and survival of organisms in these habitats and indirectly influence the biotic
interactions (i.e., competition and predation) that determine population sizes and, therefore, the structure of biodiversity in CWs. Because of their relatively shallow
depth, large surface area, and high shoreline complexity, wetlands are likely to support a high diversity of birds, benthic
invertebrates, and macrophytes [51]. Fish diversity, however, is generally lower in smaller, more isolated patches due to their limited colonizing
ability [52]. Although not consistent across studies, the biodiversity and community structure of animals in CWs can be

comparable to natural wetlands under certain circumstances [53]. [CHART OMITTED] Constructed wetlands with
emergent vegetation show a greater potential for maintaining vegetation diversity and increase the
likelihood of colonization by a more diverse assemblage of macroinvertebrates [54]. One CW in the Regional Natural
Park, Italy, was found to maintain a vegetation community consisting of 54% of the floral species pool of the whole park, despite covering just 2.52% of the total
park area [55]. The development of a diverse vegetation community is also attributed to the presence of visiting and nesting birds [20]. In southern Italy, 73 species
of birds were identified in an 8 ha free-water surface CW, of which 13 species are listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List and
the Italian Red List [56]. Similarly, a free-water surface CW in eastern Spain, planted with a range of macrophytes, was shown to attract 38 waterfowl species during
the breeding period, 16 of which are of conservation concern, as listed in Annex I of the Birds Directive [57]. 3.3. Spatial-Temporal Characteristics of the Biodiversity
Benefits of CWs Constructed wetlands are generally very efficient at removing contaminants, although this can vary
between types of CWs, wastewater sources, and operational conditions [68–70]. As a result of their contaminant removal effects,

CWs can reduce the concentration of pollutants in the surrounding environment, thus reducing the
negative effects of environmental pollution on wildlife and providing a relatively suitable habitat for
wildlife [71]. At the same time, CWs increase landscape heterogeneity and ecological diversity within river
basins. Eutrophic CWs, along with oligotrophic downstream environments, contribute to the
maintenance of regional biodiversity [72]. Moreover, the unequal purification effect of CWs, with respect to
different contaminants, can change regional stoichiometric characteristics, thus having potential
impacts on regional biodiversity [73,74]

Science goes our way

Sudarsan et al 13 (Sudarsan, J.S. – Department of Civil Engineering, SRM University; Deeptha, V.T.–
Department of Civil Engineering, SRM University; Reenu Lizbeth Roy – Environmental Engineering
Students, SRM University; Prathap M. Giri – Environmental Engineering Students, SRM University; and
Siddharth Kumar – Environmental Engineering Students, SRM University “Contructed Wetlands for
Water Quality Improvement, Recycling and Reuse” Received on: 10 October 2013, accepted on: 12
December 2013)//evw

CONCLUSIONS

Hence, based on the analysis after treatment of wastewater in horizontal sub surface f low constructed
wetland by batch process it can be said that wetland vegetated with both Phragmites spp. and Typha
spp. is working well in degradation of high concentration of wastes in Indian climatic conditions. As we
have applied the wastewater treatment system on the SRM university campus it has created awareness
on environmental consciousness to the students and staff and other residents of the township.
Constructed wetlands act like primarily biological f ilters and are very effective in removing BOD, COD,
TSS and organic nitrogen. When comparing performance of wetlands, the comparison should be based
on the performance of complete systems remembering that wetlands are only one part of a multi-part
system.
 2nc Solves – Biodiversity
CWs mitigate global biodiversity loss.
Chengxiang Zhang et al., 1-14-2020, [works at the School of Nature Conservation at the Beijing
Forestry University, "Can Constructed Wetlands be Wildlife Refuges? A Review of Their Potential
Biodiversity Conservation Value", MDPI, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/4/1442 //Weese]

3. CWs Have the Potential to Mitigate Global Biodiversity Loss 3.1. CWs Can Play an Important Role in Biodiversity
Conservation The loss and degradation of natural wetlands have forced wetland-dependent species to
increasingly use and colonize sub-optimal habitats, including CWs [18]. At the same time, the creation of these artificial ecosystems
—originally built to treat agricultural runoff or municipal wastewater—is becoming more and more popular worldwide [33,34]. As a result,
CWs offset the ecological consequences of natural wetland loss to some extent [35]. Constructed wetlands can be
divided into surface flow CWs (SFCWs), subsurface flow CWs (SSFCWs), and hybrid systems, according to the differences in how water is
introduced and distributed within the system [36–38]. Subsurface flow CWs can further be divided into horizontal subsurface flow (HF) and
vertical flow (VF) CWs [39]. In recent years, some new types of CWs, such as floating treatment wetlands (FTWs), bio-ecological A2O-wetland
systems and microbial fuel cells (MFCs) have been developed to enhance the treatment efficiency of CWs [40–42]. The importance of
CWs in biodiversity maintenance is highlighted given their relatively small areas and the high richness
and abundance of species that they support [43,44]. Indeed, studies on species–area relationships demonstrate that a
collection of small habitat patches contain more species than single, large habitats with the same total
area [45]. Low-level management approaches, such as regular dredging or harvesting, are required to maintain the purification
function of CWs [46,47]. These actions are considered to cause intermediate disturbances to ecosystems, which could also promote
biodiversity through the regulation of the dominant species [48,49]. 3.2. Empirical Studies Confirm the
Biodiversity Benefits of CWs Many studies have been undertaken on the biodiversity of existing CWs, including plants, freshwater
invertebrates, amphibians, and birds (Table 1). These studies collectively show that CWs can provide significant and
biologically valuable habitats for wildlife, promote the dispersal of aquatic biotas, and support higher-
level organisms, including fish and migratory birds [19,21]. Many factors, both environmental and biotic, govern biodiversity
in CWs [50]. Environmental factors directly determine the occurrence and survival of organisms in these habitats and indirectly influence the
biotic interactions (i.e., competition and predation) that determine population sizes and, therefore, the structure of biodiversity in CWs.
Because of their relatively shallow depth, large surface area, and high shoreline complexity, wetlands
are likely to support a high diversity of birds, benthic invertebrates, and macrophytes [51]. Fish diversity,
however, is generally lower in smaller, more isolated patches due to their limited colonizing ability [52]. Although not consistent across studies,
the biodiversity and community structure of animals in CWs can be comparable to natural wetlands under certain
circumstances [53]. Constructed wetlands with emergent vegetation show a greater potential for maintaining vegetation
diversity and increase the likelihood of colonization by a more diverse assemblage of
macroinvertebrates [54]. One CW in the Regional Natural Park, Italy, was found to maintain a vegetation community consisting of 54%
of the floral species pool of the whole park, despite covering just 2.52% of the total park area [55]. The development of a diverse vegetation
community is also attributed to the presence of visiting and nesting birds [20]. In southern Italy, 73 species of birds were identified in an 8 ha
free-water surface CW, of which 13 species are listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List and the Italian Red
List [56]. Similarly, a free-water surface CW in eastern Spain, planted with a range of macrophytes, was shown to attract 38 waterfowl species
during the breeding period, 16 of which are of conservation concern, as listed in Annex I of the Birds Directive [57].

And increase ecosystem resilience.

Falon French and Katie Zettel, 2018, [Falon French is the Law Enforcement Academy Coordinator at
the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and has a master’s degree in water resource
management. Katie Zettel is an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison pursuing a
degree in Plant Pathology, "Constructed Wetlands: The Benefits and Trade-offs of Agricultural Runoff.",
UWMadison, https://kb.wisc.edu/dairynutrient/375fsc/page.php?id=80717 //Weese]
Because constructed wetlands are often used to treat wastewater, they may not be able to offer the same ecosystem services as
natural wetlands. Habitat maps and flora/fauna surveys near constructed wetlands in Southern Italy showed a reduction in
ecosystem services and degradation of habitat (Semeraro et al., 2015). One of the most beneficial ecosystem services provided by
wetlands, aside from nutrient and sediment removal, is flood attenuation (DeLaney, 1995;Harrington & McInnes, 2009). ICW systems have the
potential to increase water storage. A review of wetland systems in Brazil have demonstrated that major flooding through the summer and fall,
is absorbed by the system of natural wetlands, which then slowly release clean, filtered water into smaller streams throughout the year
(Hammer, 1992). Wetlands promote greater biodiversity, and increase species richness, which increases the
resilience of ecosystems (Harrington & McInnes, 2009). In addition to the species that thrive within the wetland itself,
constructed wetlands improve the habitat and population of macroinvertebrates near intensively agricultural
ecosystems (Becerra-Jurado et al., 2012). Also, in a study constructed wetlands were home to 31 species of breeding bird
populations, including 9 threatened species. In Swedens, 80 percent of the wetlands studied provided habitat to at least
one of the six notable amphibian species, some of which were removed from the red list or moved to a lower threat
category (Strand & Weisner, 2013).
 2nc Solves – Drinking Water
Wetlands solve drinking water.
EPA, May 2006, [Environmental Protection Agency, "Economic Benefits of Wetlands",
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2021-01/documents/economic_benefits_of_wetlands.pdf /
/Weese]

Drinking Water Quality

Wetlands improve water quality in nearby rivers and streams, and thus have considerable value as
filters for future drinking water. When water enters a wetland, it slows down and moves around
wetland plants. Much of the suspended sediment drops out and settles to the wetland floor. Plant roots and
microorganisms on plant stems and in the soil absorb excess nutrients in the water from fertilizers, manure, leaking
septic tanks and municipal sewage. While a certain level of nutrients is necessary in water ecosystems, excess nutrients can cause
algae growth that’s harmful to fish and other aquatic life. A wetland’s natural filtration process can remove excess
nutrients before water leaves a wetland, making it healthier for drinking, swimming and supporting
plants and animals. For example, the Congaree Bottomland Hardwood Swamp in South Carolina removes a quantity of pollutants from
the watershed equivalent to that which would be removed by a $5 million treatment plant. (Source: EPA832-R-93-005)
 2nc Solves – Flooding
CWs solve flooding.
Falon French and Katie Zettel, 2018, [Falon French is the Law Enforcement Academy Coordinator at
the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and has a master’s degree in water resource
management. Katie Zettel is an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison pursuing a
degree in Plant Pathology, "Constructed Wetlands: The Benefits and Trade-offs of Agricultural Runoff.",
UWMadison, https://kb.wisc.edu/dairynutrient/375fsc/page.php?id=80717 //Weese]

One of the most beneficial ecosystem services provided by wetlands, aside from nutrient and sediment removal, is
flood attenuation (DeLaney, 1995;Harrington & McInnes, 2009). ICW systems have the potential to increase water storage.
A review of wetland systems in Brazil have demonstrated that major flooding through the summer and fall, is absorbed by the
system of natural wetlands, which then slowly release clean, filtered water into smaller streams
throughout the year (Hammer, 1992).
 2nc Solves – Chemicals
CWs solve surface water quality – remove tons of chemicals.
Falon French and Katie Zettel, 2018, [Falon French is the Law Enforcement Academy Coordinator at
the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and has a master’s degree in water resource
management. Katie Zettel is an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison pursuing a
degree in Plant Pathology, "Constructed Wetlands: The Benefits and Trade-offs of Agricultural Runoff.",
UWMadison, https://kb.wisc.edu/dairynutrient/375fsc/page.php?id=80717 //Weese]

Surface Water Quality According to Braskerud, 2002a, through sedimentation retention and denitrification
constructed wetlands are able to remove nitrogen from the surface water . However, several studies indicate that
that these processes are less efficient at colder temperatures. In studies of Norway and Sweden, nitrogen removal rate was found to be
between 3% and 15% (Braskerud, 2002a; Arheimer et al., 2004). Comparatively, research done by Beutel et al. in 2009 at constructed
wetlands in the Yakima Basin found rates of 63% removal of nitrogen, and in the San Joaquin Valley Diaz et al.,
(2012) found removal rates ranging from 22% to an impressive 99%. While there is a noticeable positive relationship between
temperature and nitrogen removal rates, other factors will affect the efficiency of nitrogen removal including wetland vegetation, design, and
inflow concentration of nitrogen as differing concentrations in runoff alters the efficiency of nitrate removal. Braskerud, 2002b found that
constructed wetlands in Norway were able to remove 44% of phosphorus in agricultural runoff , and
interestingly rate of removal increased with flow rate. This indicates that phosphorus removal rates are efficient even in high
flow or high water conditions. These results confirmed findings from Uusi-Kamppa et al. 2000 who found that in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and
Denmark constructed wetlands were able to successfully absorb up to 41% of phosphorus runoff. Constructed wetlands are also able
to remove less common pollutants such as heavy metals, hydrocarbons, bacteria, and small amounts of pesticides and
herbicides which enter surface water through erosion, runoff, spray drift, leaching, and atmospheric deposition (Brix, 1995; Vymazal &
Brezinova, 2015).
 2nc Solves – Warming
CWs solve climate change – sequester carbon and methane.
Farah Afiqah Rosli et al., 24-6-2016, [works at the Research Centre for Sustainability Science &
Governance at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, "The Use of Constructed Wetlands in Sequestrating
Carbon: An Overview", Nature Environment and Pollution Technology, https://neptjournal.com/upload-
images/NL-61-19-(17)D-606.pdf //Weese]

Many researches have been conducted to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to mitigate the
effects due to climate change. One of the initiatives is augmenting the use of wetlands. Wetlands are areas of
mainly water saturated soil, including marshes, lakes and floodplains (Kayranli et al. 2010). Wetlands play a major role in the global carbon
cycle because they are an important carbon sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide. They also provide many beneficial
ecosystem services to humankind, for example, water quality improvement, flood mitigation, wildlife and coastal protection (Mitra et al. 2005,
Mitsch & Gosselink 2007). Wetlands have also been estimated to store 20-30 % of the earth’s soil pool of 2,500
Pg of carbon (Bridgham et al. 2006) and carbon from the atmosphere due to their anoxic wet conditions (Mitcsh
et al. 2013). Furthermore, wetlands have the highest carbon density among all other terrestrial systems. There
have been 3.7 times faster rate of wetlands loss during the 20th and early 21st centuries , with a loss of 64- 71% of
wetlands among the world since 1900 AD (Davidson 2014). The increasing rate of natural wetlands loss has led to more
creation of constructed wetlands which were intended to emulate the functions and values of natural wetlands
that have been destroyed. Constructed wetlands aim to provide an ecosystem to counter balance natural wetlands that have been converted
for agriculture and urban development, improving water quality, controlling floods and producing food and fibre. Constructed wetland
systems have been adopted and applied successfully for the purification treatment of many wastewater since 1980
because most of these systems are easy to practice, have low construction cost and require only a little maintenance (Kadlec et al. 2000,
Kayranli et al. 2010, Machate et al. 1997). Scientists
have conducted many investigations on the use of wetlands
storing carbon, since the concept of wetlands carbon sequestration has been revealed and accepted .
However, the use of constructed wetlands in carbon sequestration is still very limited. Hence, in this article, we provide an overview of the use
of constructed wetlands in sequestrating carbon and comparing the capability of constructed and natural wetlands in sequestrating carbon. The
role of wetlands in carbon sequestration: Wetlands are sources of GHGs (methane mostly) but at the same time they have
a high
capacity to sequestrate carbon and store it for a long term (Lal 2004, Mitsch et al. 2010). The process of extracting carbon
from the atmosphere is called carbon sequestration (Kayranli et al. 2010). According to Hanson & Hanson (1996), wetland soil normally is fully
saturated, located well below the water table and this wetland condition creates anaerobic (anoxic) soil, which can store carbon dioxide and
release methane by decreasing the decomposition rate. Bernal & Mitsch (2012) also agreed on this and stated that wetland ecosystems are so
productive that they are capable to generate large amounts of organic matter and store it in semi-decomposed state due to the anaerobic
condition. Characteristics
such as high productivity, high water table, and low decomposition rate related
to a wetland lead to carbon storage in the soil, sediment and detritus (Whitting & Chanton 2011). However, in
dried wetlands, unsaturated soil serves as atmospheric methane sink whereby methane is absorbed
through methanophiles and anaerobic methane-oxidizing bacteria in the soil (Kayranli et al. 2010). The amount of
methane released to the atmosphere and absorbed depends on the water table level of wetlands (Moore & Dalva 1993). This is because the
water table level determines the presence of aerobic and anaerobic conditions of wetlands, which will control the methane production process
(Kelly et al. 1995, Kayranli et al. 2010). Wetlands have been identified to have the potential in carbon sequestration because there is a need to
formulate a proper wetlands management, not only concentrating on the role of wetland as a water treatment agent, but achieving
sustainability of wetland ecosystem. As given in Table 1, a number of previous researches that have been conducted to examine the use of
wetlands in carbon sequestration and sediment soil, as well as living plant communities within wetland, have been proven as one
of the effective carbon sinks (Krogh et al. 2003, Brevik & Homburg 2004, BedardHaughn et al. 2006, Kayranli et al. 2010). The
findings indicate that wetlands are vital carbon storage and may help us to mitigate the climate
changes. In order to achieve the vital aim, we must improve our operations and practices towards these wetlands so that methane fluxes can
be minimized and carbon storing could be increased.
They’re better than natural wetlands, forests, and farmlands!
Tim Lundeen, 7-3-2013, [editor of Feedstuffs, an agricultural news magazine, "Manmade wetlands
'potent' carbon sinks", Feedstuffs, https://www.feedstuffs.com/story-manmade-wetlands-potent-
carbon-sinks-52-100010 //Weese]

AFTER being drained to make way for agriculture, wetlands are staging a small comeback on farms these days. Some farmers
restore or
construct wetlands alongside fields to trap nitrogen and phosphorus runoff , and research shows that these
systems can also retain pesticides, antibiotics and other agricultural pollutants . As important as these storage
functions of wetlands are, however, Bill Mitsch, director of the Everglades Wetland Research Park at Florida Gulf Coast University and an
emeritus professor at Ohio State University, said another critical function is being overlooked: Wetlands also excel at pulling
carbon dioxide out of the air and holding it long term in the soil. Writing in the July/August issue of the Journal of
Environmental Quality, Mitsch and co-author Blanca Bernal reported that two 15-year-old constructed marshes in Ohio
accumulated soil carbon at an average annual rate of 2,150 lb. per acre — or just more than one ton of carbon per
acre per year. The rate was 70% faster than a natural "control" wetland in the area and 26% faster than
either marsh was adding soil carbon five years ago. By year 15, each wetland had a soil carbon pool of more than 30,000 lb.
per acre, an amount equaling or exceeding the carbon stored by forests and farmlands. What this suggests is that
researchers and land managers shouldn't ignore restored and manmade wetlands as they look for places to
store, or "sequester," carbon long term, Mitsch said. For more than a decade, for example, scientists have been studying the
potential of no-tillage, planting pastures and other farming practices to store carbon in agricultural lands, which cover roughly one-third of the
Earth's land area. Yet, when created wetlands are discussed in agricultural circles, it's almost always in the context of water quality. "So, what
I'm saying is: Let's add carbon to the list," Mitsch said. "If you happen to build a wetland to remove nitrogen, for example, then once you have
it, it's probably accumulating carbon, too." In fact, wetlands in agricultural landscapes may sequester carbon very quickly, because high-nutrient
conditions promote the growth of cattails, reeds and other wetland plants that produce a lot of biomass and carbon, Mitsch said. Once
carbon ends up in wetland soil, it can also remain there for hundreds to thousands of years because of
water-logged conditions that inhibit microbial decomposition. "Carbon is a big deal; any carbon sinks
that we find we should be protecting," Mitsch said. "Then, we're going even further by saying: We've lost half of our
wetlands in the U.S., so let's not only protect the wetlands we have remaining but also build some more." At the same time,
he acknowledged that wetlands emit the powerful greenhouse gas methane, leading some to argue that wetlands shouldn't be created as a
means to sequester carbon and mitigate climate change. However, in a new analysis that modeled carbon fluxes over 100 years from the two
constructed Ohio marshes and 19 other wetlands worldwide, Mitsch,
Bernal and others demonstrated that most
wetlands are net carbon sinks, even when methane emissions are factored in . The concerns about methane
emissions and even his own promising findings point to something else, Mitsch cautioned: "It's easy to undervalue wetlands if we become too
focused on just one of their aspects — such as whether they're net sinks or sources of greenhouse gases. Instead, people should remember
everything wetlands do. "We know they're
great for critters and for habitat; that's always been true. Then, we found out they
cleaned up water and could protect against floods and storms," he said. "Now, we're seeing that they're very
important for retaining carbon. So, they're multidimensional systems — even though we, as people, tend to look at things one at a
time."
 2nc Solves – Water Scarcity
CWs solve water scarcity – several case studies prove.
Alexandros I. Stefanakis, 4-30-2020, [Works at the School of Environmental Engineering at the
Technical University of Crete, "Constructed Wetlands for Sustainable Wastewater Treatment in Hot and
Arid Climates: Opportunities, Challenges and Case Studies in the Middle East", MDPI,
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/6/1665 //Weese]

Many countries and regions around the world are facing a continuously growing pressure on their limited freshwater
resources, particularly those under hot and arid climates. Higher water demand than availability led to over-abstraction
and deterioration of the available freshwater resources’ quality. In this context, wastewater, if properly treated, can
represent a new water source added in the local water balance, particularly in regions of Colorado,
California, Australia, China and in the wide region of the Middle East, which is characterized as one of most water-
stressed regions in the world. This article summarizes the status of wastewater treatment and management in the Middle East and
discusses the challenges, the various barriers and also the opportunities that arise by introducing the sustainable technology of
Constructed Wetlands in the region. Furthermore, the aim of the article is to provide a better insight into the possibility and feasibility
of a wider implementation of this green technology under the hot and arid climate of Middle East by presenting several successful
case studies of operating Constructed Wetlands facilities in the region for the treatment of various
wastewater sources.
 1nc/2nc States Solve
State-built wetlands provide key water quality benefits
Mike Burchell and Bill Hunt, 2-19-19, [Mike Burchell is an Associate Professor of Biological &
Agricultural Engineering and North Carolina State University. Bill Hunt Professor of Biological &
Agricultural Engineering and North Carolina State University, "Natural and Constructed Wetlands in
North Carolina: An Overview for Citizens", NC State, https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/natural-and-
constructed-wetlands-in-north-carolina //Weese]

Stormwater wetlands are built to help towns meet requirements for their stormwater management
plans, or in other locations through conservation grants intended to enhance local water quality. Since 2007, NCDEQ
estimates that nearly 90 stormwater wetlands were permitted to be used to treat stormwater in North Carolina. The total number of
stormwater wetlands operating here is likely well over 125, including those built by conservation groups for local water-
quality improvements. These wetlands are typically less than an acre, but a notable exception is a 30-acre stormwater wetland
constructed in 2013 in New Bern. Wetlands can also be used to help treat more high strength municipal and
industrial process wastewaters. These wetlands are known as treatment wetlands and are less common here when compared to
stormwater wetlands. Treatment wetlands provide critical treatment of more polluted wastewater as part of
an overall treatment plan for wastewater at several towns (including Walnut Cove and Aurora) and as part of other
agricultural and waste management facilities. These wetlands are also designed and constructed to emulate emergent marshes but have
deeper water and more steady flow that is not rainfall-dependent. These wetlands generally contain only one or two species of plants because
these plants must be able to tolerate deeper water and higher pollutant concentrations. Treatment wetlands are not typically in locations that
are visible to the public, so aesthetics is not an important component of their design. On average, treatment wetlands are generally larger than
stormwater wetlands, such as the 4.5-acre treatment wetlands in Walnut Cove. These
wetlands provide final treatment of the
town’s wastewater before discharging to a nearby stream (Figure 8). As of 2018, less than 10 treatment wetlands were
operating in North Carolina. It is important to remember that these constructed wetlands for stormwater and wastewater treatment should not
be confused with restored wetlands. Stormwater and treatment wetlands are not designed and constructed with the goal to
replace lost wetland functions. Rather, these wetlands are constructed to provide key water quality benefits, often in
places or landscape settings where natural wetlands did not previously exist. Conclusions North Carolina still
has millions of acres of natural wetlands that are important components of our rich natural resources. Efforts continue to replace
wetlands lost to development through wetland restoration and creation. Stormwater and treatment wetlands
are also being designed and constructed to use their natural ability to reduce many pollutants in water .
Scientists and engineers continue to study how to most effectively build successful wetlands so these resources can provide the most functions
to society.
 2nc States Solve
States can build Constructed Wetlands---empirics prove.
Caitlin Seyfried et al. 16. Data analyst at the University of North Carolina Finance Center. Trey Talley,
researcher at the University of North Carolina Finance Center. Evan Kirk, data analyst at the University of
North Carolina Finance Center. "Constructed Wetlands for Wastewater Treatment." Environmental
Finance Blog. 9-23-2016. https://efc.web.unc.edu/2016/09/23/constructed-wetlands-wastewater-
treatment-walnut-cove-nc/. accessed 6-23-2021 //ART

Walnut Cove is a small community of roughly 1,400 residents in Stokes County, North Carolina, just north of Winston-Salem. In 1994,
the town had a problem: their wastewater treatment plant was in urgent need of repair. The Board of Commissioners was faced with the

significant challenge of figuring out how to pay for a $2 million upgrade to their wastewater treatment
infrastructure. Fortunately for Walnut Cove, Commissioner Wayne Smart proposed an alternative solution inspired by a NASA documentary about the
technological requirements of humans living in space. The documentary led Mr. Smart to propose the construction of an artificial wetland

treatment system instead of a more expensive, traditional wastewater treatment plant. [CHART OMITTED] The
system was installed in 1996 and consists of a series of constructed wetland ponds. Raw sewage is pumped into the
first of the primary holding ponds and slowly flows to the second holding pond. Aerators in both ponds ensure oxygen mixes into the water so that the abundant
microorganisms thrive and decompose the solid waste, which settles to the bottom. The water is further filtered as it slowly moves through serpentine ponds filled
with duckweed. The final pair of ponds are covered in cattails—tall wetland plants that filter nutrients, such as nitrates, from the water. After flowing through the
cattail ponds, the water is exposed to chlorine gas (to reduce colonies of fecal coliform bacteria) and then to sulfur dioxide gas (to neutralize the remaining chlorine)
in a controlled area before being discharged into Town Fork Creek. It typically takes 60 days, from holding pond to creek, for the input of raw sewage to be
transformed into crystal clear water.

CP worked in Arizona – supported by the EPA, Bureau of Reclamation, and Army Corps
of Engineers
EPA 2004 (United States Environmental Protection Agency “Constructed Treatment Wetlands”
https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi/30005UPS.PDF?Dockey=30005UPS.PDF)//evw

In 1990, city managers in Phoenix, Arizona, needed to improve the performance of their 91st Avenue
Wastewater Treatment Plant to meet new water quality standards issued by the Arizona Department of
Environmental Quality. After learning that upgrading their treatment plant might cost as much as $635
million, the managers started to look for a more cost-effective way to polish the treatment plant’s
wastewater discharge into the Salt River. A preliminary study suggested that the city consider a
constructed wetland system that would polish effluent, while supporting high-quality wetland habitat
for migratory waterfowl and shorebirds, including endangered species, and protecting downstream
residents from flooding at a lower cost than retrofitting their existing treatment plant. As a result, the
12-acre Tres Rios Demonstration Project began in 1993 with assistance from the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation and EPA’s Environmental Technology Initiative and now receives
about two million gallons of effluent per day. The demonstration project was so successful that the city
and the Bureau of Reclamation asked EPA for help in expanding the project to a full-scale, 800-acre
project. For more information on the Tres Rios Constructed Wetlands Project, visit,
http://phoenix.gov/TRESRIOS/
 2nc States Solve – AT Jurisdiction
Wetland management authority is delegated to states.
US Army Corps of Engineers, 2000, [, "Wetlands Management Handbook",
https://www.spk.usace.army.mil/Portals/12/documents/regulatory/pdf/10167.pdf //Weese]

Responsible Federal agencies. The wetland permitting program is managed by the Corps, but the EPA has veto power
over Corps permit decisions. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service have consultative rights. Enforcement
authority is shared by the Corps and EPA. States
may adopt administration of parts of the program from the Corps,
with EPA oversight; currently Michigan and New Jersey are the only states to do so. Other implications of the Clean Water Act. The Clean
Water Act requires that a permit be obtained for each point source pollutant discharge into surface waters. Different activities require permits
from different agencies. Dredge and fill activities require permits issued by the Corps. Most
states have assumed the authority
to issue permits for point source discharges within their boundaries (water quality certification). Discharge of
waste into waters of the United States is regulated under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
(NPDES), an EPA program established by the Clean Water Act that has been delegated to most states. Discharges of waste into
waters of the United States are not normally regulated by the Corps unless navigation or anchorage in navigable waters will be substantially
impaired (Section 402(b)(6) and 33 CFR 320.3(n)). Specific NPDES rules and procedures vary from state to state, and in some states may be
written and administered by the EPA.
 NB – EPA Trade-off
CWs don’t trigger the link – past ones prove.
Farah Afiqah Rosli et al., 24-6-2016, [works at the Research Centre for Sustainability Science &
Governance at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, "The Use of Constructed Wetlands in Sequestrating
Carbon: An Overview", Nature Environment and Pollution Technology, https://neptjournal.com/upload-
images/NL-61-19-(17)D-606.pdf //Weese]
There have been 3.7 times faster rate of wetlands loss during the 20th and early 21st centuries, with a loss of 64- 71% of wetlands among the
world since 1900 AD (Davidson 2014). The increasing
rate of natural wetlands loss has led to more creation of
constructed wetlands which were intended to emulate the functions and values of natural wetlands that have been destroyed.
Constructed wetlands aim to provide an ecosystem to counter balance natural wetlands that have been converted for agriculture and urban
development, improving water quality, controlling floods and producing food and fibre. Constructed wetland systems have been
adopted and applied successfully for the purification treatment of many wastewater since 1980 because
most of these systems are easy to practice, have low construction cost and require only a little
maintenance (Kadlec et al. 2000, Kayranli et al. 2010, Machate et al. 1997). Scientists have conducted many investigations on the use of
wetlands storing carbon, since the concept of wetlands carbon sequestration has been revealed and accepted. However, the use of constructed
wetlands in carbon sequestration is still very limited. Hence, in this article, we provide an overview of the use of constructed wetlands in
sequestrating carbon and comparing the capability of constructed and natural wetlands in sequestrating carbon

CWs don’t drain resources – low cost and easy to manage.

Chengxiang Zhang et al., 1-14-2020, [works at the School of Nature Conservation at the Beijing
Forestry University, "Can Constructed Wetlands be Wildlife Refuges? A Review of Their Potential
Biodiversity Conservation Value", MDPI, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/4/1442 //Weese]

Constructed wetlands (CWs) are artificial ecosystems that simulate biogeochemical processes occurring
in natural wetlands to optimize their water purification function. Due to their characteristics of being low-
cost, having a low energy consumption, and being relatively easily managed [12], CWs are considered
important forms of green infrastructure that are widely used for wastewater treatment, especially for the
treatment of agricultural runoff, domestic wastewater, and industrial landfill leachate [13,14]. Although accurate data are not available, it is
estimated that CWs have increased 5–50% globally since the 1960s [15]. In China, there were more than 800 CWs in operation by
2016, accounting for about 2% of the country’s wastewater treatment facilities [16,17]. The rapid expansion of CWs can, to some degree,
compensate the loss and degradation of natural wetlands, which was recognized as one of the key factors contributing to global biodiversity
decline [2].

They cost nothing to maintain.

Water Online, ND, [Information and news site for water management and the water industry,
"Constructed Wetlands: A Low-cost Alternative", https://www.wateronline.com/doc/constructed-
wetlands-a-low-cost-alternative-0002 //Weese]

Constructed wetlands are finding increasing uses communities because they cost less than conventional
wastewater treatment plants. Also they readily can be accommodated in these areas, which have the land such systems require.
However, urban areas also are expressing a growing interest. In Arizona, there is Tucson's Sweetwater facility. Also
the pilot project at Phoenix's Tres Rios facility is the possible precursor to a full-scale facility. Constructed wetlands are useful for
treating municipal effluents, industrial and commercial wastewaters, agricultural runoff, stormwater runoff, animal wastes, acid mine drainage,
and landfill leachates. They use wetlands' plants, soils, and their associated microorganisms to remove contaminants from wastewater by
mimicking the processes in natural wetland ecosystems. The
town of Jerome, AZ, recently chose to construct a wetland
rather than build a mechanical treatment plant to treat its wastewater. Maintenance of the mechanical treatment
plant was to cost about U.S.$1000 per month, whereas maintaining the wetland was expected to cost "little or
nothing." Also in Arizona is a jointly constructed-wetland project by the City of Sierra Vista and the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation. It is expected to demonstrate the technology's environmental benefits. Such benefits would derive from using
treated wastewater for aquifer recharge and for release directly to the river.
 NB – Politics – Popular
Economic benefits mean CWs are popular.
Falon French and Katie Zettel, 2018, [Falon French is the Law Enforcement Academy Coordinator at
the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and has a master’s degree in water resource
management. Katie Zettel is an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison pursuing a
degree in Plant Pathology, "Constructed Wetlands: The Benefits and Trade-offs of Agricultural Runoff.",
UWMadison, https://kb.wisc.edu/dairynutrient/375fsc/page.php?id=80717 //Weese]
Costs of constructed wetlands vary based on environment, incentives, and the characteristics of the farmland, and if the amount of land that
needs to be purchased. Arheimer et al., (2004) indicated that the average cost of implementing constructed wetlands in Sweden was
approximately $1.7 million (SEK) in the early 2000s. Based on the resulting 5% nitrogen reduction, the cost-effectiveness of constructed
wetlands was low. In comparison, using other best management practices were over half a million dollars less expensive to implement and
removed six times more nitrogen (86 tons per year) than the wetlands (Comin et al., 2014). However when
it comes to treatment
facilities for livestock manure, constructed wetlands could treat the waste at a fraction of the cost .
Regarding a study of ICWs in Anne Valley, most farmers, business owners, and local residents support the use of
wetlands, do to the lower cost of treatment services, due to funding from outside sources . If the
government were to provide funding for ICWs, most residents believed that even greater economic
and environmental benefits would be seen (Everard et al., 2012).

Wetlands have bipartisan support – people want more of them – Indiana legislation
proves.
Casey Smith, 4-29-2021, [statehouse reporter in Indiana for the Associated Press, "Indiana governor
signs wetland repeal bill, despite pushback", WANE 15, https://www.wane.com/news/indiana/indiana-
governor-signs-wetland-repeal-bill-despite-pushback/ //Weese]

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – A bill removing some protections from Indiana’s already diminished wetlands was signed
into law by Gov. Eric Holcomb Thursday despite widespread criticism that it could damage waterways, wildlife and
vegetation. The wetlands measure passed out of the Legislature April 14 and has sparked bipartisan opposition within the
Republican-dominated Legislature. Retroactive as of Jan. 1, it eliminates a 2003 law that requires the Indiana Department of
Environmental Management to issue permits for construction and development in state-regulated wetlands and end enforcement proceedings
against landowners accused of violating current law. Holcomb’s signature followed his own reservations earlier in the Legislative session, when
he said that the wetlands repeal was a cause for “concern.” He further allowed staff at the natural resources and environmental management
departments to oppose the bill in hearings in January, where state
regulatory officials argued that the wetlands must be
protected because they purify water, provide habitat for wildlife and reduce flood risks . The governor’s office
did not immediately reply to requests for comment Thursday on the bill’s signage. Months-long pushback against the bill prompted lawmakers
to scale back the intended repeal earlier this month, reducing wetland permitting regulations for croplands and temporary streams, rather than
for all wetlands. All Democratic members of the General Assembly, as well as a member of the Senate Republican Caucus, urged the Republican
governor to veto the bill last week, citing “long term consequences” and a need for “more in-depth study than what was accomplished in
limited committee times during a legislative session in a pandemic.” In a separate letter delivered to Holcomb’s office Monday, more than
100 organizations called on the governor to veto the bill they claimed will “cost the state dearly ,” when
accounting for increased flooding and erosion expenses, loss of groundwater recharge, fewer tourism
opportunities and loss of diverse wildlife “that makes Indiana special.” “This bill opens the door to irrevocable impacts on our
rich natural history and puts the wellbeing of millions of Hoosiers at risk, now and well into the future,” the letter said. “Indiana needs a
thorough, inclusive, and deliberative approach to changing the law on such a vital natural resource.” Republican bill author Sen. Chris Garten
and other sponsors argued throughout the Legislative session that vague language in the current state law, over-enforcement by state
regulators and high mitigation fees that drive up housing costs prompted the drafting. They contend removal of state protections would help
developers and grow the housing market. The proposal comes as President Joe Biden’s administration reviews the previous administration’s
rules such as the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, which narrowed the definition of waterways that fall under federal protection. Indiana
originially had over twelve million acres of wetlands, but now only has around 900,000 acres. Betsy Yankowiak with the Little River Wetlands
Project said they are disappointed with the decision to pass the bill, particularly because Indiana legislatures are the ones who chose to
implement protections after the federal government stopped protecting wetlands in 2003. “ We
don’t want to degrade our state,”
said Yankowiak. “We don’t want to lose these natural areas because everybody wants to go kayaking in the
river and so if we lose our wetlands we lost the filtration that keeps our rivers clean and so we need to be
putting wetlands back into our landscape, not taking away these protections.”

Water infrastructure projects like constructed wetlands is bipartisan

Josh Chetwynd 12/2/20 (B.S.J., Northwestern University; M.S.J., Northwestern University; J.D., cum
laude, University of Arizona; LL.M., merit, London School of Economics and Political Science. “New
report delivers national infrastructure path to cleaner water. Study highlights how investment can
protect our water” Environment America https://environmentamerica.org/news/amc/new-report-
delivers-national-infrastructure-path-cleaner-water)//evw
WASHINGTON – Bold investment can stop sewage overflows and help make America’s waterways safe again, according to a new report from
Environment America Research & Policy Center. Entitled A Path to Cleaner Water, the study comes out as Congress negotiates water
infrastructure funding for the coming fiscal year as part of the federal budget. The
study examines successful and innovative
projects in each of the ten U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regions -- from nature-based
infrastructure, such as rain gardens and constructed wetlands, to conventional projects, such as
upgraded wastewater treatment plants. For example, a combination of conventional and natural infrastructures are working
together to nearly eliminate combined sewer overflows into the Portland stretch of the Willamette River and Columbia Slough, making them
once again safe for recreation and wildlife. “From Texas’ San Marcos River to Washington’s Puget Sound, one thing is clear: investing in water
infrastructure works,” said Laura Miller, co-author of the report and clean water advocate with Environment America Research & Policy Center.
“Across America, sewage overflows and runoff pollution are threatening our favorite places to swim, paddle and find peace in nature. But when
our nation applies the right resources, we can fix these problems.” Polluted runoff from roads and parking lots, and overflowing or failing sewer
systems are common sources of water contamination. Scientists estimate there are 57 million instances of people getting sick each year from
swimming in polluted water. Algal outbreaks, fish kills and beach closures are common effects of these sources of pollution. Investing in
stormwater and wastewater infrastructure, the report concludes, can prevent this pollution at the source. Absent infrastructure repairs, all
these pollution problems will become worse as infrastructure ages and storms become more intense with climate change. Earlier this year, the
U.S. House of Representatives earmarked $11 billion in additional funding for both clean water and drinking water infrastructure. But last
month the U.S. Senate unveiled a budget proposal that includes no increase. Congress has until Dec. 11 to negotiate a compromise on this and
other issues in the federal budget. “Investing
in clean water is a good idea for our waterways, communities and
environment, and we know that it can be done with broad, bipartisan support,” Miller said. “We saw
proof that the will to increase water infrastructure funding spans across the aisle earlier this year when
the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee announced draft legislation with bipartisan
backing to boost water infrastructure spending. This type of clean water collaboration can bring
Congress together and show unity in a time of great division.”
Affirmative
 2ac – Doesn’t Solve
They’re costly and inefficient.
Chengxiang Zhang et al., 1-14-2020, [works at the School of Nature Conservation at the Beijing
Forestry University, "Can Constructed Wetlands be Wildlife Refuges? A Review of Their Potential
Biodiversity Conservation Value", MDPI, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/4/1442 //Weese]

Although CWs are widely considered an ‘eco-friendly’ approach to wastewater treatment, they have
some disadvantages that
reduce their operability and affordability. Compared with conventional sewage treatment plants, CWs
require a much larger area of land [118]. The purification function of CWs also inevitably leads to the
clogging of filtration media and substrate pores [38,119]. In addition, the treatment efficacy of CWs is
significantly influenced by the plant species used and environmental factors [120,121]. For example, using plants
with high biomass and evapotranspiration rates, strong resistance to pollution stress and low temperatures, fast growth and colonization rates,
can alleviate some of these disadvantages to some extent. Therefore, the utilization of single or alien plant species with such favorable traits is
widely practiced [122].

Dense plant biomass reduces efficiency.

Alexandros I. Stefanakis, 4-30-2020, [Works at the School of Environmental Engineering at the
Technical University of Crete, "Constructed Wetlands for Sustainable Wastewater Treatment in Hot and
Arid Climates: Opportunities, Challenges and Case Studies in the Middle East", MDPI,
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/6/1665 //Weese]

Another concern when implementing CW projects is the management of the produced plant biomass. Plant
productivity is another parameter that should be considered and that can be measured if pilot tests are carried out. As explained above, plants
tend to be more productive in the warm climate of the Middle East. This means that CW systems typically have a higher biomass production
rate compared to temperate climates. There is not a rule of thumb regarding the frequency of harvesting of the above-ground biomass, but
practical experiences from operating CW facilities implies that this should take place every 2–3 years. Particularly in FWS wetlands, the
continuous accumulation and increasing density of plant biomass as well as the development of root
mats, if not removed for many years, results in the gradual build-up of the rootzone and the decrease in the
freeboard depth compared to the initial design. Such a situation might impact the hydraulic efficiency of the
system and create short-circuiting of the flow within the wetland and jeopardize plants’ health and
treatment efficiency. Harvesting of the reed biomass is not a difficult task in small CW facilities; usually, this
is done by isolating one cell at a time and letting it dry before the harvesting, which is typically carried out using light machinery such as an
excavator or a bobcat loader. In larger systems though, harvesting is a challenge and a detailed program should be implemented, while special
tailor-made equipment may also be used. The harvested biomass is typically disposed to landfills, but there are some ongoing or already carried
out studies on the reuse of the reed biomass for compost production and in anaerobic digesters for biogas production.
 1ar – Doesn’t Solve
Effectiveness depends on humidity – arid climates reduce effectiveness.
Alexandros I. Stefanakis, 4-30-2020, [Works at the School of Environmental Engineering at the
Technical University of Crete, "Constructed Wetlands for Sustainable Wastewater Treatment in Hot and
Arid Climates: Opportunities, Challenges and Case Studies in the Middle East", MDPI,
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/6/1665 //Weese]

Despite the various advantages of implementing CWs in arid and hot areas, there are also some important concerns.
Under these climatic conditions, CW functions may be altered compared to temperate and/or humid climates, which could
potentially affect their expected ecosystem services. The main change in their behavior is the higher water losses via
evapotranspiration (ET) (which in some cases, can even exceed 40%), i.e., evaporation and plant transpiration, which alters the
water balance in these systems and may result in increased salinity values. Water losses through transpiration
are reported being higher than open water evaporation in wetland systems in hot and arid climates [27–32]. This means that, if
treated effluent reuse is considered, water losses through ET should be minimized.

Constructed wetlands have empirically failed

Gokalp ’14 [Zeki Gokalp, Erciyes University, Agricultural Faculty, Department of Biosystems
Engineering, Kayseri-TURKEY, Oğuzhan Uzun, Erciyes University, Agricultural Faculty, Department of Soil
Science and Plant Nutrition, Kayseri-TURKEY, Yılmaz Calis, Special Provincial Administration of Kayseri,
Kayseri-TURKEY; “Common Failures of the Natural Wastewater Treatment Systems (Constructed
Wetlands) of Kayseri, Turkey”; Ekoloji 23, 92, 38-44 (2014); doi: 10.5053/ekoloji.2014.924; kp]

Continuously polluted waters, decreasing water resources due to global warming and climate chance, and
increasing labor and energy costs brought water and treatment technologies to first place on the world’s agenda .
Despite the continuously increasing environmental awareness and legal regulations against environmental pollution, domestic and industrial
wastewaters are discharged into the nearest receiving water bodies without any treatment. Haphazard disposal of wastes into the environment
and untreated wastewater discharged into rivers and streams pollute air, water, and soil and create a danger for human, animal, and plant
health. All these wastes should be treated before their disposal and discharge to leave a healthier and cleaner environment for future
generations. The constructed wetlands, defined also as natural treatment systems, are the systems emulating the
natural wetland systems. They are commonly used for treatment of domestic and industrial wastewater
in specially designed basins with aquatic plants and can easily be used for small-to-medium sized communities. There are 51
constructed wetlands in the Kayseri Province of Turkey and more than three-fourths have some kind of structural
failure and are not operating properly. In this study, all of these constructed wetlands were investigated
with regard to improper design aspects and possible failures. The common failures were identified as
improper design, construction and site selection, substrate clogging and consequent (poundings),
insufficient plantation, leakage through slopes, and lack of post-construction operation, monitoring,
and maintenance activities. The reasons for such failures and possible corrective measures are also proposed in this study.

Clogging and inefficient phosphorus hurt CW effectiveness

Poswal ’12 [Dinesh Poswal, Technical Director, Rebound Enviro Tech Pvt. Ltd.; “Typologies of Failures
of Constructed Wetlands and the way forward”; Conference: National Conference on Water Quality
Management At: Department of Civil Engineering, Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur
Volume: 1; December 2012;
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256089389_Typologies_of_Failures_of_Constructed_Wetlan
ds_and_the_way_forward; kp]
The constructedwetlands (CWs), a lined basin containing media and wetland plants, treats wastewater by a variety of
physical, chemical, and biological means. The treatment of wastewater by nature-based technologies that utilize solar energy
and living organisms has proven to be cost-effective as compared with energy-intensive and highly mechanized technologies for wastewater
treatment. Currently, CWs are being utilized for removal of a range of pollutants and a broad variety of wastewaters worldwide. Horizontal
subsurface constructed wetlands (HSF CWs) systems are the examples of the use of appropriate technology for the sanitation especially for
small communities where the problem of power failure is common. This paper reveals the most common issues of clogging
and lower phosphorus efficiency reported in HSF CWs. Paper also presents an attempt to integrate and reuse the
information extracted from the literature and real experiences, to contribute to the prevention and solution of clogging problem and better
phosphorus removal. The management of this information may also be allowed the proposal for successful operation and maintenance of
constructed wetlands. The paper also concludes with some recommendations to overcome the clogging issue as well better phosphorus
removal performance of HSF CW technology.
 2ac Doesn’t Solve GW
Doesn’t solve warming – benefits vary depending on the climate and they could emit
more than they sequester.
Farah Afiqah Rosli et al., 24-6-2016, [works at the Research Centre for Sustainability Science &
Governance at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, "The Use of Constructed Wetlands in Sequestrating
Carbon: An Overview", Nature Environment and Pollution Technology, https://neptjournal.com/upload-
images/NL-61-19-(17)D-606.pdf //Weese]
The research site used to be the floodplains, but it was converted to an agriculture land in the 1930s and restored into a wetland in the early
1990s. In brief, the findings show that agricultural activity significantly increases the rate of carbon storage within wetlands and causes the
accumulation of nutrients to the ecosystem, which also being claimed by McCarty & Ritchie (2002). The study area experienced hot dry
summers (mean summer temperature = 24°C) and cool moist winters (mean winter temperature = 8 °C) with a mean annual precipitation of 28
cm. There is a concrete
relationship between climate and soil, which means the organic carbon content decrease
with increasing temperature and organic matter decomposition (Maynard et al. 2011). Hence, if temperature
continually increases, the decomposition of organic matter would also increase, and consequently
wetlands could become a major carbon source. However, in this study it is not clearly stated the correlation between carbon
sequestration values and temperature. The wetland has a surface area of 7.3 ha with a long (850 m) and narrow (85 m) design and an average
water depth of ~0.6 m. The spatial patterns of carbon (C) within the different soil depositional environments are presented via four, 2-D
crosssections (Fig. 2b and Fig. 3). Each cross section runs from west to east, showing the distribution of C with the depth. The findings of the C
storage in wetland soil sediments are presented in Table 2. Through the findings, it proves that constructed
wetlands are capable
to sequestrate and also store carbon for a long term, but the contribution of carbon sequestration vary from
different depth of sediment accumulation among the wetland areas. However, there are several researches indicating
that constructed wetlands could be either a sink or a source of CO2 depending on the time scale of
research and the environmental management involved (Brix et al. 2001, Thiere et al. 2011). Also in comparison to that of
Maynard et al. (2011), Landry et al. (2009) claimed that constructed wetlands emit 2 to 10 times more GHGs
than natural wetland, but they observed unplanted wetland systems in their investigation, while the wetland observed by Maynard et
al. (2011) was a well planted 13 year old constructed wetland converted to agriculture in 1930s. The presence of plants is important because it
may improve the diffusion of gases through water and affect the methane production (Zhu & Sikora 1995).
 2ac – CW Bad LL
Constructed wetlands fail – cause disease, warming, and don’t treat wastewater.
Maria Kielmas, 11-22-2019, [journalist and consultant specializing in energy and climate and a former
international exploration geologist, "The Disadvantages of Wetland Nature Reserves", Sciencing,
https://sciencing.com/info-8396288-disadvantages-wetland-nature-reserves.html //Weese]
Wetlands are nature’s system of flood control and water cleaning. They store excess water from a river flood or during a storm and allow it to
flow slowly back to the river as a storm abates. Wetlands filter out excess nutrients and pollutants and provide habitats for a wide variety of
wildlife. In nature, wetlands can be swamps, bogs and marshes along a coastline, such as the Florida Everglades, or an inland system, such as
the Okavango Delta in Botswana. The past two decades have witnessed extensive wetland nature reserve restoration and
construction. Newly constructed wetland nature reserves provide wastewater treatment facilities as well as wildlife habitats Disease
Wetlands in the form of swamps are breeding grounds for mosquitoes and other diseases . Mosquito
populations may be controlled partly in constructed wetlands. Land Use Constructed wetlands are land-intensive
undertakings. In the past, many countries had policies of draining and filling in natural wetlands to permit
urban development. Levees, heightened river banks and sea walls provided flood defenses. Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the folly of
such policies. Methane Production Methane has 10 times the atmospheric warming capacity of carbon dioxide
and is the most effective greenhouse gas for global warming. Wetlands produce about one quarter of
the Earth’s atmospheric methane through the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter . Inadequate
Remediation Constructed wetlands are unable to treat highly toxic modern wastewater . Such waste needs
to be pretreated in special installations, which could impact on the visual beauty of a nature reserve. Residual pollutants
may have a negative effect on the reserve’s wildlife.
 2ac – CW Bad – BioD
CWs aren’t ecologically diverse and have negative impacts on biodiversity
Chengxiang Zhang et al., 1-14-2020, [works at the School of Nature Conservation at the Beijing
Forestry University, "Can Constructed Wetlands be Wildlife Refuges? A Review of Their Potential
Biodiversity Conservation Value", MDPI, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/4/1442 //Weese]

5. Challenges in Using CWs to Conserve Biodiversity 5.1. CWs

are Simplified Replications of Natural Wetlands Natural
wetlands have been described as ‘transitional environments’ occurring between terrestrial and aquatic systems, which create diverse
habitats for wildlife. The environmental gradients that occur from the terrestrial to the aquatic realms can be crucial for maintaining
regional biodiversity [111]. However, such habitat heterogeneity is usually ignored in the design and construction
of CWs. This often results in the creation of relatively simple and uniform habitat conditions for wildlife [112].
For example, a recent comparative assessment of habitat suitability in CWs and natural wetlands for the smooth newt (Lissotriton vulgaris) in
Ireland found that natural wetlands had significantly more terrestrial habitat types than CWs [113]. As more attention has been paid to the
wastewater treatment capabilities of CWs, the enhancement of the biogeochemical processes has increasingly become a
primary design objective. In contrast, hydrological processes are largely overlooked, despite their important
role in sustaining wetland biodiversity [114]. Indeed, hydrological regimes (i.e., temporal and spatial variations in water
levels), which are considered the main driver of vegetation zonation in natural wetlands, are broadly homogenized in CWs [115].
Water level fluctuations can maintain species-rich wet meadows, fens, and wet prairies. Periodic flooding discourages the succession of wetland
shoreline vegetation communities to woody plants and supports the full array of wetland communities and their associated wildlife [116]. In
comparison, relatively
stable water levels can lead to the development of vegetation communities
dominated by a few species, thus reducing the biodiversity function of CWs [117]. 5.2. Simple Species
Composition Increases the Risk of Invasion Although CWs are widely considered an ‘eco-friendly’ approach to wastewater
treatment, they have some disadvantages that reduce their operability and affordability. Compared with conventional sewage treatment
plants, CWs require a much larger area of land [118]. The purification function of CWs also inevitably leads to the clogging of filtration media
and substrate pores [38,119]. In addition, the
treatment efficacy of CWs is significantly influenced by the plant
species used and environmental factors [120,121]. For example, using plants with high biomass and evapotranspiration rates,
strong resistance to pollution stress and low temperatures, fast growth and colonization rates, can alleviate some of these disadvantages to
some extent. Therefore, the utilization of single or alien plant species with such favorable traits is widely
practiced [122]. The introduction of alien species increases the risk of further species invasion [123,124] and
threatens native species through mechanisms such as predation, competition for resources, the release
of toxins, disease transmission, and hybridization [125,126]. For example, the invasive bluespotted cornetfish (Fistularia
commersonii) and silver-cheeked toadfish (Lagocephalus sceleratus) predate upon various other fish species and invertebrates and could
potentially affect their stocks [127]. Although there are no reports on invasive plants that "escaped" from constructed wetlands published so
far, thisecological risk still should not be ignored. 5.3. CWs May Become an ‘Ecological Trap’ Ecological traps,
which occur when animals mistakenly prefer habitats in which their fitness (i.e., growth, survival, and reproduction) is
lower than in other available habitats. This can result from rapid environmental change and has important
conservation and management implications. A number of studies (Table 2) have identified CWs as potential ecological traps
through the accumulation of pollutants that are difficult to decompose (e.g., heavy metals and polymer compounds) [128]. Animals use
environmental cues (e.g., vegetation, temperature, and pH) to select habitats that maximize their fitness [129].
Constructed wetlands can provide such cues, while at the same time being unrepresentative of habitat
quality, and wrongly attracting animals to these engineered systems [130,131]. High concentrations of several pollutants have been
identified as an ecological trap for some species of fish and frogs in CWs, reducing their survival and
impairing their growth [132,133]. A recent global assessment indicated that the fitness of animals in CWs is lower than
in natural wetlands, even though the abundance and richness of species can be similar [134]. This suggests that CWs can have
negative impacts on biodiversity in the long term. Furthermore, CWs may increase the risk of regional
extinction by attracting migration from nearby native habitats.
 1ar – CW Bad – BioD
CWs don’t solve BioD and can harm native species.
Chengxiang Zhang et al., 1-14-2020, [works at the School of Nature Conservation at the Beijing
Forestry University, "Can Constructed Wetlands be Wildlife Refuges? A Review of Their Potential
Biodiversity Conservation Value", MDPI, https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/4/1442 //Weese]
The degradation of wetland ecosystems is currently recognized as one of the main threats to global biodiversity. As a means of compensation,
constructed wetlands (CWs), which are built to treat agricultural runoff and municipal wastewater, have become important for maintaining
biodiversity. Here, we review studies on the relationships between CWs and their associated biodiversity published over the past three
decades. In doing so, we provide an overview of how wildlife utilizes CWs, and the effects of biodiversity on pollutant transformation and
removal. Beyond their primary aim (to purify various kinds of wastewater), CWs provide sub-optimal habitat for many
species and, in turn, their purification function can be strongly influenced by the biodiversity that they support. However, there are
some difficulties when using CWs to conserve biodiversity because some key characteristics of these
engineered ecosystems vary from natural wetlands, including some fundamental ecological processes .
Without proper management intervention, these features of CWs can promote biological invasion, as well as form an
‘ecological trap’ for native species. Management options, such as basin-wide integrative management and building in more
natural wetland components, can partially offset these adverse impacts. Overall, the awareness of managers and the public regarding the
potential value of CWs in biodiversity conservation remains superficial. More in-depth research, especially on how to balance different
stakeholder values between wastewater managers and conservationists, is now required.

And they invite invasive species.

US Army Corps of Engineers, 2000, [, "Wetlands Management Handbook", US Army Corps of
Engineers, https://www.spk.usace.army.mil/Portals/12/documents/regulatory/pdf/10167.pdf //Weese]

Constructed wetlands are often taken over by unwanted species such as loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) and
cattail (Typha sp.). These plants may reduce diversity and wildlife habitability but at least provide cover and erosion
control. Once established, they are difficult to remove. Herbicides can be applied, but must be used at the proper time of the
year and carefully enough that desired species are not affected. Some projects have had success with burning followed by flooding to control
pest species. In forested wetlands, trees may eventually shade undesirable herbaceous species out.
 AT NB – EPA Tradeoff
Links to EPA tradeoff – costs increase with scale – the more the CP solves, the more it
links AND upfront costs are significant.
J Tyndall and T Bowman, 2016, [work at Iowa State University Department of Ecology & Natural
Resource management, "Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy Best Management Practice cost overview
series: Constructed wetlands", Iowa State University,
https://www.nrem.iastate.edu/bmpcosttools/files/page/files/2016%20Cost%20Sheet%20for
%20Constructed%20Wetlands.pdf //Weese]

The installation and long-term costs of a constructed wetland will vary considerably depending upon design and
scale. The costliest components of constructed wetlands are typically associated with site planning and design,
excavation activities, control structures required and the opportunity cost of any land removed from
agricultural production (over the long term, opportunity costs in the form of foregone land rent or net revenues typically represent
between 50% and 70% of the total costs of this practice). Depending on the context for wetland use, overall scale of the project or program tie-
in (e.g., USDA CREP wetland program)1 , engineering planning and design costs can be significant upfront costs.

EPA has ultimate authority over wetland management.

US Army Corps of Engineers, 2000, [, "Wetlands Management Handbook", US Army Corps of
Engineers, https://www.spk.usace.army.mil/Portals/12/documents/regulatory/pdf/10167.pdf //Weese]

Responsible Federal agencies. The wetland permitting program is managed by the Corps, but the EPA has
veto power over Corps permit decisions. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service have
consultative rights. Enforcement authority is shared by the Corps and EPA . States may adopt administration
of parts of the program from the Corps, with EPA oversight; currently Michigan and New Jersey are the only states to do
so.
 AT NB – Costs PC
Stakeholders resist CWs – the Middle East proves.
Alexandros I. Stefanakis, 4-30-2020, [Works at the School of Environmental Engineering at the
Technical University of Crete, "Constructed Wetlands for Sustainable Wastewater Treatment in Hot and
Arid Climates: Opportunities, Challenges and Case Studies in the Middle East", MDPI,
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/12/6/1665 //Weese]

Finally, as
a relatively new technology in the region, the implementation of CW projects should always
consider local cultural, social and religious characteristics and taboos, besides physical factors such as the climate,
water resources, and onsite conditions. For this, the main stakeholders for the introduction of a new CW system should
be identified and involved in the project development, i.e., water authorities, future users of the treated effluent, private and/or public service
providers, local governmental authorities, developers and investors, financing and research institutes, any community-based organizations,
educational institutions, among others. For example, besides the legal barriers, e.g., where effluent reuse is not allowed in some areas, or
the need to comply with a very high effluent quality, across the Middle East, there is often a resistance in reusing
treated wastewater for irrigation due to cultural and religious reasons; however, a gradual change in the perspective
and understanding of local and national authorities is slowly taking place, which is a crucial factor to drive a change in people’s thinking. In any
case, it
is important to ensure that any new CW solution is understood and accepted by all involved
stakeholders and decision makers; in this, the demonstration of successful full-scale projects can be a
decisive parameter.