Atomaqua (1968)

This bottle of desalinated water was produced by Southern California Edison for "Nuclear Week in New York" which was held May 18-26, 1968. California's wine industry obviously provided the inspiration for the bottle.

That was the year that Unit 1 of the utility's San Onofre plant began operating. Since the site hadn't yet been connected to the City of San Clemente's water system, they had to build a seawater distillation unit to provide freshwater (fifty gallons per minute). The City began supplying sufficient water to the site by the time that Units 2 and 3 were constructed and no additional distillers were required.

So that no energy would be wasted, the heat for the distiller was supplied by the reactor's low-pressure steam!

"Eau d'atomique," of course, means "atomic water."

Donated by the Nucleus.

Much of this information was kindly provided by Gene Cramer, a So CAL employee from 1969 to 1995.