Desal decision due

The City Council will take on its most controversial project of the

year Tuesday night, with dozens of activists and community leaders

lining up to offer their opinions on the Poseidon desalination plant.

On one side of the aisle are the local Republican Party and the

Huntington Beach business community in support of a plan by

Connecticut-based Poseidon Resources to build a $250-million

desalination plant. On the other side are scores of neighbors,

environmental agencies and grass-roots citizen groups trying to stop

a massive industrial project they argue is wrong for Huntington

Beach.

The final decision rests with the Huntington Beach City Council,

who will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday to look at the proposal and consider

approving an environmental report on the facility. If the council

determines the report adequately addresses all the environmental

impacts of the desalination plant, they will be asked to issue

development permits to build the project. It is at that point that

the Huntington Beach City Council will decide whether the Poseidon

project is a good fit for the city.

Poseidon is asking the council to approve plans to build a

desalination facility behind the AES power plant on Newland Avenue

and Pacific Coast Highway.

Proponents for the project argue that desalination is the future

of California’s water demand and that a growing population in Orange

County will need the water.

State Water officials are skeptical of the proposal, arguing that

California’s water needs have been met for the next 20 years.

Desalination might be useful in the distant future, they say, but the

current price of desalinating water, especially the large energy

expenses associated with the technology, don’t currently make it an

economically feasible proposal.

Poseidon officials argue that the costs of desalinated water will

continue to drop, while the price of imported water and pumped ground

water will continue to rise, eventually meeting in the middle.

Desalination proponents also argue that the plant will generate

millions in tax revenues for the city, but it is unclear how they

have tabulated their rates.

Many environmental groups are worried about the impacts of the

project, especially on the ocean. The California Coastal Commission

recently released a 17-page letter blasting an independent

environmental assessment of the project as inadequate and

self-serving.

Then there are the hundreds of residents who live near the

proposed facility in southeast Huntington Beach. The small area is

already home to the aging AES power plant, an almost overflowing

toxic waste dump and a sometimes smelly sewage treatment plant. These

residents argue that they cannot accept any more industrial uses in

their backyards -- especially one as big as Poseidon that will take

at least two years of construction and require the tearing up of city

streets to accommodate a pipeline to connect Poseidon’s water with a

regional distribution system.

It’s now up to the City Council to decide if it should take a

gamble with Poseidon, adding one more industrial use to a beleaguered

part of town but possibly helping to solve Southern California’s

water shortage.