Costa Mesa opposes the Poseidon pipeline

City Council goes on record against ripping up streets for project, claiming it offers no benefit to the city.A plan to build a desalination facility in Huntington Beach hit a snag Tuesday night when the Costa Mesa City Council voted to officially oppose construction of six miles of pipeline through the city.

In theory, the pipeline would deliver water from a proposed desalination plant at the corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Newland Avenue to a regional water distribution hookup 10 miles away at Del Mar and Elden avenues in Costa Mesa.

In a close 3-2 decision, the Costa Mesa City Council opted to bar the developers of the Poseidon desalination plant from running the six-mile section of pipe under Costa Mesa streets and properties. The effects of the pipeline -- which would cut through a Costa Mesa golf course, park and the Orange County Fairgrounds -- significantly outweighed the benefits of the project, the council said.

The proposed $250 million plant would be able to convert 50 million gallons of seawater into drinking water per day.

The project hasn’t yet been approved by the Huntington Beach City Council, but Poseidon officials have offered the city a number of perks if the project is accepted, including subsidized water, an emergency water supply and tax benefits.

“The deals that they’re trying to make in Huntington Beach don’t apply in Costa Mesa,” said Dave Guido of Huntington Beach Tomorrow, an activist group. “This is definitely going to wake a lot of people up in Costa Mesa about what is coming their way.”

Poseidon Vice President Billy Owens told the council he felt he was being “tried without a jury” and that his company eventually planned to make a formal application to install the pipeline, but likely not for another year.

“It’s fair to say we normally would propose the city have all the details and know exactly what is on the table,” he said. “We believe their action was premature.”

How the Costa Mesa decision will affect the Huntington Beach City Council vote scheduled for Nov. 21 remains unclear.

“It appears the opponents of the project are just looking to drum up political concerns in other cities and are going around banging gongs,” City Councilman Don Hansen said.

Huntington Beach’s council has certified an environmental report on the project. Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa staffs met to discuss the project on May 24, a city memo shows. Costa Mesa will almost certainly require its own report on the project’s local effects if the plant goes ahead, local officials said.

For now, though, Costa Mesa council members seem dead set against any encroachment into their city.

“They can get all the approvals they want in Huntington Beach, but at this point, given the information provided to us to date, they’re going to have to find another route through a different city,” Costa Mesa Councilwoman Katrina Foley said Wednesday.

That’s impossible, Owens said.

“It has to go through Costa Mesa,” he said.

Costa Mesa Councilwoman Linda Dixon and Councilman Gary Monahan dissented. Monahan said he thinks it’s premature to take a position on a project that may not go forward for years, if at all.

Costa Mesa council members said they’re concerned about noise and traffic that construction of the pipeline will cause, and they don’t see any benefits to the city from the project. The pipeline route would use public right-of-way along Adams and Placentia avenues and Harbor Boulevard and Fair Drive.

“Right now, based on the information we have, I see only negatives for Costa Mesa if our streets are dug up,” Mayor Allan Mansoor said.

He might reconsider if the project’s developers offered the city some compensation, he said, “but it would have to be such a huge benefit to offset the huge inconvenience, and I don’t know if that’s possible.”

Huntington Beach planner Ricky Ramos said Costa Mesa’s decision could have consequences for Poseidon as it tries to win an approval from the Huntington Beach City Council.

“It’s pretty critical, because if the pipeline they identified is not going to happen, they will have to modify their route in Huntington Beach,” he said.