Hearing on Huntington Beach Desalination Plant Postponed
Coastkeeper pleased to see regulatory agencies ensuring proposal meets state environmental standards
ORANGE COUNTY – August 22, 2016—Last week, the California Coastal Commission agreed to postpone the hearing on Poseidon Water’s proposed Huntington Beach Desalination Project. Orange County Coastkeeper says this is good news for residents and ratepayers because the review process is designed to protect the county’s valuable coastline, clean air and water and ensure proposed desalination projects serve the public interest.
“Poseidon has been preying on drought fears to try to fast track this billion-dollar project, but the Coastal Commission’s agreement with Poseidon underscores the State’s commitment to due process and smart safeguards for the public,” says Coastkeeper Executive Director Garry Brown.
Poseidon has racked up a dozen water quality permit violations at its Carlsbad desalination plant in the past year for polluting the ocean with toxic chemicals, so the State will look especially close at Poseidon’s application to renew an outdated National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) water quality permit for the Huntington Beach project.
“Last year, California adopted new rules to ensure all desalination projects demonstrate the need for the water they want to produce, identify appropriate sites and use the best available technology to minimize harm to sea life,” says Brown. “As proposed, Poseidon’s Huntington Beach plant would not be in compliance with those rules.”
The postponement comes with the understanding that the three state permitting agencies involved — California Coastal Commission, Santa Ana Regional Water Board and State Water Resources Control Boards and the State Lands Commission — will work together on an interagency permitting agreement that provides for review under existing laws and regulations, including the new desalination rules. In addition to getting a new NPDES permit, the proposal must also be evaluated under the California Environmental Quality Act and the California Coastal Act.
“We view this postponement as a positive step towards ensuring that this project gets the appropriate environmental review it deserves consistent with current law,” says Brown. “There are still a significant number of unanswered questions on the project. On top of all the environmental, economic and energy impacts this plant would have on Orange County, there has been no proven need for this water.”
Coastkeeper says that Poseidon has yet to address the following concerns:
- The plant is still proposed to be built on an earthquake fault in a tsunami run up zone
For more information, read this story on the impacts of the Poseidon-Huntington Beach desalination plant.
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ORANGE COUNTY COASTKEEPER: Orange County Coastkeeper is a member of the International Waterkeeper Alliance, which has 236 different independent programs across 29 countries. Founded in 1999, the mission of Coastkeeper is to protect and promote sustainable water resources that are swimmable, drinkable, and fishable. Coastkeeper is a nonprofit clean water organization that serves as a proactive steward of our fresh- and saltwater ecosystems. We work collaboratively with diverse groups in the public and private sectors to achieve healthy, accessible, and sustainable water resources for the region. We implement innovative, effective programs in education, advocacy, restoration, research, enforcement, and conservation. For more information, visit www.coastkeeper.org or call 714-850-1965.
