Effects of plant will linger for years...

Effects of plant will linger for years

After more than five hours of public testimony on the Poseidon

environmental report, it was disappointing and shocking to witness

the majority of the Huntington Beach City Council disregard the

concerns in opposition to the report.

Huntington Beach’s largest tourist attraction and thus revenue

generator is our beach.

This ocean desalination plant is to be built in the exact location

where the beach closures in Huntington Beach have taken place over

the years. This project will be constructed by the same company that

failed to build a viable seawater desalination plant in Tampa Bay,

Fla.

I am at a loss to understand how the City Council could approve

the environmental report. The inadequacies of the report aside, the

effects on the city of Huntington Beach and the residents will be

felt for years.

I want to thank Mayor Jill Hardy, Councilman Dave Sullivan and

Councilmember Debbie Cook for their reasoned and informed statements

in opposition.

FLOSSIE HORGAN

Huntington Beach

Like it or not, report deserved approval

I am personally in favor of the Poseidon project, so I naturally

like the council’s decision. However, even if I did not approve of

the project, I would have to believe that all the facts and science

contained in the environmental report called for a yes vote by the

council. I believe those who voted against it had sufficient

opportunity to have any questions they had answered by the city staff

and/or the applicant, so that their no vote was either a display of

predisposition against the project or an attempt not to alienate

those anti-Poseidon members of the community who have been their

supporters.

GEORGE CROSS

Huntington Beach

The report just wasn’t good enough

Council members Debbie Cook and Dave Sullivan and Mayor Jill Hardy

made the right decision in voting to deny the inadequate Poseidon

environmental report.

Council members Cathy Green, Gil Coerper, Don Hansen and Keith

Bohr voted to approve the environmental report. Hansen should be

especially ashamed because he lives in the 92646 area. Sixty-four of

his constituents have a lawsuit against the city and the Orange

County Sanitation District because of the pipeline being installed in

their area. Their houses are sinking.

Now this Poseidon project wants to put a pipeline in the same

streets, and these four council members voted that the environmental

report was adequate.

The report is inadequate in not telling how the pipeline could be

allowed.

Huntington Beach was the lead agency and should have stepped up to

the plate and done what they were supposed to do. The report was

inadequate, and they should have voted to deny it.

EILEEN MURPHY

Huntington Beach

Plant will wreck ecology of coast

I am very disappointed at the outcome of the vote. This project,

if approved, will do so much more damage than good.

The Poseidon company has a very untrustworthy past, and I have no

trust in them at all. I think that this will ruin the ecology of our

coast and will ruin the area I live in at Newland and Pacific Coast

Highway. I will have to move, and it will be a great hardship on me.

I have no assurance that the construction needed will not destroy my

home.

BARBARA WILLIAMS

Huntington Beach

Nothing for the city, harm for animals

I disagree with the City Council’s action in approving the

Poseidon environmental report. I don’t see a value for Huntington

Beach in creating more heavy industrial sites near the beach, and it

appears that Huntington Beach won’t even significantly benefit from

the water that may be produced by the plant.

But the most important reasons for preventing the placement of the

desalination plant as proposed are the potential for damage to ocean

waters and marine life, and the potential for fouling the aquifers

under our area. It appears that the scientific reasons for preventing

this development were ignored by the City Council.

DIANE BLAKE BENTLEY

Huntington Beach

Short and to the point

The council did not make the right decision.

JOHN HOWELL

Huntington Beach

On the other side of the issue

I have been a Huntington Beach resident for 35 years. The City

Council made the right decision in approving the Poseidon

environmental report.

ROBERT HARRISON

Huntington Beach

This neighborhood has had enough

Amazing. Here we go again: Southeast Huntington Beach continues to

be the guinea-pig development experiment. This city continues to

misuse this section of the city, and the drive for the almighty

dollar is always at the forefront of the ongoing city budget debate.

It is not enough that we in southeast Huntington Beach have our

friendly neighbor called Edison, which sometimes likes to discharge

large quantities of highly pressurized steam into the atmosphere in

the middle of the night when purging the pipes for plant maintenance

reasons, thereby waking up its neighbors without letting them know

ahead of time.

It is not enough that our friendly Orange County Sanitation

District, which lovingly ripped up miles of our streets not once but

twice and still are not finished with the project. And now it also is

dealing with neighborhood lawsuits and the displeasure of those

people who were inconvenienced by the noise, digging and horrible

pipe material selection that required it be removed and replaced.

It is not enough already that we have the ASCON landfill, which

spewed hazardous thick oil over houses and streets in our

neighborhoods last year and now is getting “cleaned up.” We must now

endure six long months of large equipment hauling and rolling over

our streets on their way out of town with the waste that was allowed

to be dumped there.

It is not enough that now we get another potential “neighborhood

friend” called Poseidon that has a long history in a failed Tampa Bay

experiment. Poseidon has not lived up to the proposed level of

product (fresh water) to be produced for the customers who might have

to buy it at inflated prices to recoup Poseidon’s current business

loss and lack of project management.

It’s still not enough for the four council members who voted for

this to go forward. Those of us who disagree with their vote on this

subject now live to see their future political careers end as soon as

possible for their lack of human insight, oversight, consideration

and attention to detail that is required for the council jobs you

hold.

I am not a NIMBY, antidevelopment person or environmentalist or

any thing along those lines. I am a human being who is getting tired

of the experiments.

Let me be specific. I am a human being who is getting really tired

of all these development experiments that are not adding to the

quality of life for those of us who live with these daily situations

and who put the council members into their positions to represent our

best interests versus the overall financial needs of the city at the

expense of taxpayers like us who make up this city and its budget.

I am also getting tired of council members who over the years have

lacked this basic human understanding of people who must endure these

experiments while never considering any other possible

quality-of-life development efforts that can add to the tax roles.

Do you want me to go on? Thought not.

MICHAEL KARAL

Huntington Beach

Treat Poseidon like any business

The City Council was right to certify the environmental report.

The original report was rejected and the company was asked to do more

work in certain areas. They did so. They have spent a lot of money to

jump through a lot of hoops. They are following the process and we

should treat them as we treat any other business in town. If a

7-Eleven wants to open in Huntington Beach, we make them follow a

process and follow rules and regulations, and we should treat

Poseidon the same way.

KATIE AGESON

Huntington Beach

If city gets water, the plan is good

If Huntington Beach is a part owner of the new desalinization

plant, so that Huntington Beach residents are guaranteed an

inexpensive supply of drinking water, then I’m for the plant. If

we’ve given a private firm permission to ship our water, our

birthright, elsewhere, then I’m against it.

PHILLIP GOOD

Huntington Beach

Report not adequate, nothing sorted out

The City Council majority made a huge error in certifying the

Poseidon environmental report. The document was obviously flawed,

incomplete and wholly inadequate in identifying all of the

significant effects of the project.

While the project can still be denied in the conditional use

permit phase, Poseidon should have been forced to come back with a

clean report with their plans better sorted out.

TIM GEDDES

Huntington Beach