Poseidon is a bad egg for neighborhood

Myriam Telles

I am very upset about the proposed Poseidon plant because I think it

will add to the pollution and to the horrible smells we already get

in our neighborhood.

Over here, we have the Orange County Sanitation District plant and

there are many times that our neighborhood smells like a gigantic

toilet. It smells of human waste.

I think part of the problem is that they don’t really clean the

water enough so a lot of human waste and other things go into our

water, and we smell it because we’re right at the point where they’re

releasing it. We smell it in our neighborhoods, and then on top of

that, we’ve got the AES electric plant nearby that generates noise

and also pollution. And in addition to that, we’ve already got the

messy hazardous ASCON waste site.

Why do we also have to get this water desalination plant from

which we will not benefit at all in Huntington Beach? We will not get

water from that plant. We will not get our water bills reduced. There

is no benefit to us and it only hurts our neighborhood. On top of

that, it’s going to shoot out brine. You know what that is? Smelly.

It smells like fish and salt.

Now you’re going to mix that smell in with everything that comes

from the sanitation plant and it’s going to make our homes smell so

lovely. Nobody’s going to want to buy them. Plus, it’s horrible for

us to have to smell it and our children often have to smell it.

There’s also been times where we couldn’t even have a barbecue in

or backyard because the smell is so bad coming from the plant. We

have to apologize to our guests that that’s not our house, that we’ve

cleaned it, that it’s just that nearby plant emanating the smell in

the neighborhood. We don’t want it to get even worse.

We need help cleaning up our messes. We don’t need more messes. We

in Southeast Huntington Beach cannot constantly be the ones punished

with these smelly, noisy, horrible environmental impact projects. Why

should we be the only ones? Why not take that desalination plant and

take it and put it right near the pier? How do you think people would

approve it then?

Or put it right over there near those beautiful homes near golf

courses. You know, our homes might not be near a golf course, but

we’re only a block and a half from the beach, so this is a hot

neighborhood, but if you guys ruin the smell of this area with that

new plant, it’s not going to be a hot neighborhood for long and

you’ll have a lot of lawsuits from homeowners, upset that you ruined

their home values.

So please, please stop this desalination plant .

* MYRIAM TELLES is a Huntington Beach resident. To contribute to

“Sounding Off” e-mail us at hbindy@latimes.com or fax us at (714)

965-7174.