MAILBAG - Jan. 11, 2007 - Los Angeles Times

Jan. 11, 2007 12 AM PT

Poseidon supporters need all the facts

Regular Huntington Beach Independent readers cannot help but notice the suspicious deluge of letters supporting the proposed Poseidon Resources desalination plant project. Orchestrated and encouraged by Poseidon and their symbiotic AES cohorts or not, these letters all betray the same misunderstanding and ignorance of the facts in the matter.

Here are my favorite five facts that all letter writers and members of the public need to bear in mind:

There is no imminent water shortage or crisis of any kind facing Huntington Beach in the near future. We have sources of water, both local and out of area, that will serve us fine for decades. Poseidon’s desalinated water is simply not needed at this time.

Current cost projections make Poseidon’s desalinated water prohibitively expensive, far more than Huntington Beach or any existing community in the area would ever consent to pay for. Nobody around here wants Poseidon’s expensive new water. They have no customers.

Poseidon will not now, or ever, be a major supplier for drinking water to Huntington Beach (see the first and second points). This water would never be for us. It would be for new South County communities who do not have established sources of water already. Any discounted or emergency supply of desalinated water (at market rates) to our city would be the proverbial drop in the bucket for our needs.

Despite its big-time financial backing, Poseidon has no major success in establishing an operating desalination plant. Its effort in Tampa Bay resulted in failure, and its projects elsewhere have run into snag after snag. The risk of this project becoming an embarrassing boondoggle is astronomically high.

Poseidon has never acted in good faith in dealing with our community. Time after time, its representatives have sought to manipulate public opinion with bogus PR efforts, slipshod environmental reports and evasive arguments about their plans. While they have fought and bought their way into the upper hand legally, Poseidon is a long way off from being able to bamboozle their way completely through the approval process.

Those writing these alleged letters of support should take these facts into consideration before jumping on or clinging to the Poseidon bandwagon. Otherwise, there is a good chance they will get run over by it in the long run.

TIM GEDDES

Huntington Beach

We shouldn’t be inconvenienced by new area code

From a Huntington Beach resident’s perspective, perhaps the best way to eliminate NIMBY ranting and special hearings at the various city hall forums on the proposed phone area code changes there is a more basic, cost-effective method.

I doubt that this would be well-received by the various city political entities because it dilutes their exposure and grandstanding on the matter.

First off, an overlay sounds great, but is just a panacea to placate the inconvenience to residents and businesses and will outgrow itself within a few years — do the math.

If you really want to be efficient and fair to the existing 714 denizens then do some quick math on the two options — the second and third ones — and see which cities are the greatest polluters in terms of user growth and phone service needs in their proposed zone.

Why should people in Huntington Beach (residents and businesses) be inconvenienced when cities like Santa Ana, Fullerton, Orange and Anaheim are embarking on large mixed-use projects with huge growth driving this need.

I think that a simple, fair and realistic approach would be to look at potential growth in all these zones based on existing and projected city projects and penalize the gross polluters.

I have nothing against development, but do not inconvenience me because your cities are on a fast track and need more resources. To me, this is no more than infrastructure upgrades — you build it and create a need, then you deal with it.

DREW KOVACS

Huntington Beach

MAILBAG - Jan. 11, 2007

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