Salt release is already a huge environmental concern with exiting desalinization systems. Energy consumption and installation costs aren't the sole (and probably not the main) problems. Desalinization is inherently a pollution.
I don't doubt there is an effect, but am not convinced that the "release area just dying" is correct.
Brine disposal is indeed a complex issue. Should be noted the above URL is from a desalinization industry proponent so I would say it's probably a little more optimistically biased but it was one of the better summaries I found so it still has value from that perspective. If you do more digging around each of the solutions they discuss you can find more pro's/con's for each and you will quickly find out that it is a pretty significant issue.
I was more thinking of proper studies, such as reviewed in [0], which says in the abstract: "Ecological monitoring studies have found variable effects ranging from no significant impacts to benthic communities, through to widespread alterations to community structure in seagrass, coral reef and soft-sediment ecosystems when discharges are released to poorly flushed environments. In most other cases environmental effects appear to be limited to within 10s of meters of outfalls."
So, impact yes, but "release area is just dying", probably not.
[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00431...
Lots of reasons, pros and cons. I work in automotive and hate it.
Ever hear of the Romans salting the earth of people the conquered? It was so they couldn't grow crops - yet we routinely do this to ourselves - pretty daft.
Problem will be that we’ll get way too much salt (a few grams of salt per liter of water), so it won’t help much.