State OKs desalination plant in Surf City

Paul Clinton

Viewing Orange County’s future drinking water needs as a glass

half-empty, the state Department of Heath Services has approved, in

concept, a desalination plant that would deliver a store of

purer-than-mandated drinking water to Surf City and the rest of

Orange County. It would be built next door to the AES power plant.

The Poseidon Seawater Desalination Project, as it would be known,

would deliver 50-million drinkable gallons of ocean water per day,

after removing the salt content. The $240-million project could be

completed as early as the end of 2005.

With less water on the horizon coming from the Colorado River,

desalination plants like the one from Poseidon Resources, will play a

crucial role in the area’s water needs, state drinking water

administrator David Spath said.

“Certainly, there’s going to be a need for additional resources,”

Spath said. “That plant will help to meet that demand.”

If Huntington Beach decides to buy water from the plant, it would

reduce the city’s reliance on groundwater as its source for water.

The city uses between 25- and 30-million gallons of groundwater each

day. Orange County consumes about 650-million gallons a day.

Similar plants have also been proposed for Long Beach, Dana Point,

Playa del Rey, Redondo Beach and other cities. Poseidon has also

proposed a plant for Tampa, Fla.

The state agency’s approval marks the first time the health

services department has approved a plant of this size under the Clean

Water Drinking Act of 1996.

The plant is slated to be built next to the AES Huntington Beach

plant and down road from the Orange County Sanitation District’s

ocean outfall pipe. The sanitation district pumps 234-million gallons

of treated wastewater into the ocean each day. However, the

salination plant won’t be sucking in any water from the sewage

agency’s plume, Poseidon vice president Andrew Shea said.

“We don’t want to be drinking anybody’s bathwater,” Shea said.

“The outfall is a couple of miles up the beach and it goes 4 1/2

miles offshore.”

The plant would use a treatment method known as “reverse osmosis.”

After silt and other solids are removed from the seawater, it is

passed through microscopic filters that screen out salt and other

impurities.

As part of the construction, Poseidon would build a transmission

line from Huntington Beach to the Mesa Consolidated Water District,

in Costa Mesa. From there, it can be delivered to the rest of the

county.

No public money is being used to build the plant, yet Poseidon

must collect approvals from a number of agencies, including the city

of Huntington Beach.

No hearings have been scheduled, Planning Director Howard Zelefsky

said, but the plant could head to the Planning Commission in early

January. The City Council is also expected to weigh in.

Councilman Ralph Bauer said he couldn’t offer an opinion on the

plant, before Poseidon “makes its case” to Surf City.

“It seems intellectually that with the shortage of water it would

seem like an interesting alternative,” Bauer said. “Wouldn’t it be

nice to have a place that makes water right in your backyard.”

Bauer said the city might ask for first dibs on the water, before

the plant ships it to the rest of Orange County.

Residents living near the plant have expressed some concerns about

the plant, even though a final plan has not been made public.

Residents in Southeast Huntington Beach are worried about that the

plant will use an inordinate level of power, increase the salinity of

the ocean by released salt byproducts back into the sea and cause too

much noise with its heavy-duty pumps, said George Mason, a member of

the Southeast Huntington Beach Neighborhood Assn.

“They should be paying real close attention to containing the

sounds, so that the desalination plant doesn’t become a concern to

the neighborhood,” Mason said.

City leaders have 45 days to offer comments on Poseidon’s

environmental analysis, which was released Sept. 19. Zelefsky said

the city would prepare those comments by Nov. 4.