Poseidon ups offer to city

Poseidon is offering Huntington Beach a discounted water supply in

hopes of securing approval for its desalination facility at Monday’s

meeting.

Officials with the Connecticut-based company said they’re prepared

to sell Huntington Beach three million gallons of water per day at a

rate 5% cheaper than it currently pays the Municipal Water District

of Orange County if the city gives it a conditional use permit to

build a $250-million desalination plant behind the AES power plant at

Newland Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway.

A coalition of environmentalists and residents living near the

site of the proposed plant are planning their own campaign to stop

the facility. Anti-Poseidon activist Eileen Murphy said her group has

narrowed its strategy to lobbying key council members.

It’s anyone’s guess who will emerge a victor in the closely

watched environmental battle many say will have implications for

dozens of other desalination facilities planned for the California

coast. The council narrowly certified the group’s environmental

impact report at its Sept. 7 meeting and will be asked Monday to

determine whether the benefits of the project outweigh the concerns.

Since the project’s inception, Poseidon officials have argued that

desalinated water is crucial to the growth of Orange County. On

Friday they rolled out a plan to supply about 10% of the city’s water

at a slight discount for the next 30 years, perhaps defusing

activists’ arguments that the plant’s water wouldn’t go to Huntington

Beach.

“It would provide a nominal benefit, but certainly nothing

significant,” Public Works Director Bob Beardsly said, adding the

proposal is only an offer and would have to be negotiated with the

council.

“It adds another dimension to our water portfolio,” he said.

Poseidon Vice-President Billy Owens said the water would protect

against possible long-term disruptions to the water supply. If the

municipal water district decides to cut back imports to Huntington

Beach in a dry year, Poseidon water will be available to meet demand.

“It should insulate them from any type of shortages at all,” he

said.

That would mean Poseidon would be selling the city water at about

half of what it costs to produce, Metropolitan Water District

Official Wes Bannister said.

“Sounds like a good deal to me, but I question some of the

numbers,” he said.

Poseidon is also offering to supply the city an emergency water

supply of up to 10 million gallons of water per day for seven days in

the event of a catastrophic incident like an earthquake or flood.

“Where pipes are broken and normal water supplies can’t be

transmitted through, we would be able to deliver water into the

system,” Owens said. “At a minimum it would protect downtown

Huntington Beach and the southeast neighborhoods from water

disruptions.”

Beardsly also said there was some talk about utilizing Poseidon

technology to help pump water out of a proposed city reservoir near

Poseidon; that might save the city about $1.5 million in

infrastructure costs.

Owens said his group is preparing to negotiate the taxes the city

would receive from the proposal.

“There is also legal protection if there is a change of

ownership,” he said. “The city would be assured that the benefits

would continue with the property, regardless of who the owner is. The

benefits are tied to the property, not Poseidon.”

Those benefits aren’t enough to sway residents like Murphy, who

argue that Poseidon would be detrimental to residents living in the

heavily industrialized southeast neighborhood.

Residents have already had to endure a massive pipeline project by

the Orange County Sanitation District and shouldn’t have to endure

another pipeline project to connect Poseidon with a regional water

distribution system, she said.

Murphy added that many residents are concerned that a similar

effort by Poseidon in Tampa Bay, Fla., never delivered the water it

promised.

“We don’t think they should have approved the environmental impact

report, but that’s a horse out of the barn,” she said.

Instead, her group will continue to lobby Don Hansen and Gil

Coerper, council members she has identified as crucial swing votes.

“We only need one more vote to stop this thing,” she said.