MAILBAG - Feb. 7, 2008

Water subsidies not quite a deal for us

The Huntington Beach Water Desalination Facility hosted a breakfast meeting at the Hilton Hotel on Jan. 25.

Although Poseidon Resources was not referenced anywhere on the invitation, everyone attending knew who the real host was. The meeting’s spokesperson and invitation signatory was Andrew Kingman, Poseidon’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO). The meeting’s greeters, i.e. gatekeepers, were representatives and principles of M4 Strategies, Poseidon’s PR firm.

The meeting’s purpose, as stated on the invitation, was to tout the facility’s projected $70 million “contribution” to Huntington Beach coffers over the facility’s 30-year life span.

Indeed, $70 million is a lot of money. This would seem to make the project a good deal for Huntington Beach. However, what Kingman didn’t talk about was the matter of subsidies.

The amount of subsidizing necessary to make Poseidon’s water product merchantable is staggering.

These subsidies make the $70-million figure seem like chump change.

Carlsbad presently buys its water for about $700 per acre-foot. This is about the average cost of imported water. Poseidon’s production cost, according only to Poseidon, is about $950 per acre-foot.

The difference between Poseidon’s sales price and its production cost has to be accounted for somewhere. In steps the San Diego Water District, a public water agency. SDWD has agreed to subsidize Poseidon’s desalted water at $250 per acre-foot. The desalination plant in Carlsbad is projected to produce 56,000 acre-feet a year. That makes the subsidies $14 million per year.

Over 30 years, the subsidies amount to $420 million! The subsidies must come from somewhere. That’s $420 million out of the ratepayers/taxpayers pockets!

Now, let’s do similar math based on what Huntington Beach residents pay for their water — about $515 per acre-foot. If Poseidon’s costs are the same $950 per acre-foot, that means a subsidy of $435 per acre-foot.

Poseidon’s Huntington Beach plant is projected to produce 56,000 acre-feet a year — the same as the plant in Carlsbad.

The subsidy of $435 acre-feet multiplied by 56,000 acre-feet a year equals $24.3 million per year.

That’s $730 million over 30 years! Yeah! That’s quite the deal — Huntington Beach gets $70 million, Poseidon gets $730 million!!

Who do you think is going to pick up that $730 million tab?

By the way, five of Huntington Beach’s City Council members attended the breakfast meeting at the Hilton. Would their common attendance be a violation of the Brown Act?

DAVID HAMILTON

Huntington Beach

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Cynthia Doe was a special, warm person

Michèle Marr’s article (“Campaign e-mails regurgitate unjust generalizations,” Jan. 24) remembering the late Cynthia Doe is a fitting tribute for her.

Like Marr, I also came to know Cynthia at the Huntington Beach Interfaith Council when I joined it to represent my Zoroastrian community there. Cynthia was a warm, kind person who was knowledgeable on many topics. She would share with me what she saw on TV or read about my old country, India, and about my ancient monotheistic pre-Islamic Iranian religion founded by prophet Zarathushtra (Zoroaster).

When her son died prematurely a few years ago, she embraced me to share her grief and to appreciate the solace she felt from my words of sympathy for her loss. After her stroke, when I visited her at the hospital, I felt hopeful at her positive responses to my asking her if she recognized me, but like her other friends I was disappointed to hear of her passing away.

It is said that God often calls the good people early to his abode and blesses their souls with eternal peace. I will remember her as a special friend I was fortunate to know.

MANECK BHUJWALA

Huntington Beach

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City has obligation to make streets safer

My family has lived in the Park Huntington track, a stone’s throw from Indianapolis, since 1988, and I have studied the problem by virtue of concern seeing how fast motorists drive, and knowing our four children would have to navigate it.

Danny Oates is not the first person to lose his life in a car-versus-bicycle event on Indianapolis. The facts of what happened that horrible day do not need to be known, as at least twice every year there is a bicyclist/pedestrian hit by cars, and they are usually school-aged kids.

Danny was not standing on foot; he was eastbound on his bike in the bike lane on a straight street with good visibility (your words).

A city has no higher calling than public safety. Trying to slow down the speeds between Bushard and Brookhurst should have been done years ago. The same is true for Atlanta and Hamilton!

As far as the city setting itself up for being liable, with that logic should we not correct any unsafe condition that is found? I wonder if you would have the same outlook if it was your child that got his or her life cut short?

TOM CLARKE

Huntington Beach