Community Commentary:

Seawater desalination will someday become part of Orange County’s water portfolio. The cost of imported water has risen by two-thirds over the past year and is expected to continue to rise. One of the benefits of desalination is that it is drought-proof, reliable and cost-certain. Poseidon Resources, which is in the permitting process for building a desalination facility in Huntington Beach, is already under construction for a similar project in Carlsbad. For that project in San Diego, Poseidon agreed to 30-year contracts with San Diego County water agencies to provide water at a fixed cost for the next three decades.

Some of Poseidon’s detractors claim that their effort to build a desalination facility in Tampa, Fla., was a failure. I was recently in Tampa Bay and decided that I should investigate this project. I toured the plant and talked to the officials.

My interest stems from my responsibility as an elected officer and the Mesa Consolidated Water District’s interest in buying water from Poseidon’s Huntington Beach project.

In 1999, Tampa Bay Water selected Poseidon Resources after a competitive bid process to develop, construct and operate a seawater desalination plant. Construction began on schedule in May 2001, and then after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and related financial market collapse, the engineering and construction contractor involved in the project declared bankruptcy. The project moved forward under Poseidon’s management until May 2002, when Tampa Bay Water decided to exercise its right in the development agreement to buy out Poseidon prior to project completion.

As it was explained to me, Tampa Bay Water officials thought that they could avoid development risk and save money by assuming ownership and publicly financing the project. When they exercised that right and bought Poseidon out, Tampa Bay Water engineers announced that the project was on time (30% complete) and on budget.

Tampa Bay Water officials do not claim that Poseidon was to blame for the problems. They say the problems could not have been anticipated, and now that Tampa had bought out Poseidon, they now owned the problems as well.

They also stated that Poseidon was never sued and described them as a good working partner. For the water industry and Poseidon, this project provides a valuable history of lessons learned.

Public-private partnerships should work to shift risk to the private sector, especially when public agencies have limited technical experience and scarce rate payer-funded financing sources.

There are many issues that must be resolved prior to our water agency’s formal engagement with Poseidon, including the plant’s water quality, cost and final permitting.

In this regard, Poseidon has a lot to prove. Nonetheless, we should all dedicate ourselves to an honest discussion based on the facts.

SHAWN DEWANE is president the board of directors at Mesa Consolidated Water District.