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San Diego Union-Tribune - 06/11/06
Editorial
Final local round ...
Desalination plant faces two more votes
“I believe this may be the most significant project we hear in our lifetime.” – Marty Montgomery, chairman, Carlsbad Planning Commission The importance of a planned desalination plant next to the Encina Power Station in Carlsbad cannot be overstated. The plant would provide a drought-proof supply of water for 112,000 households, or roughly three cities the size of Carlsbad. Planning Commission Chairman Marty Montgomery got it right when his panel voted 6 to 0 for approval of the project. Here's hoping two other bodies get it right next week when the plant, eight years in the planning, will enter the final stage of the local permitting process. The Carlsbad City Council will consider the project at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, followed by the San Diego County Regional Water Quality Control Board at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. Hearings before several state agencies won't take place until next year. Carlsbad already has contracted to purchase up to half the plant's water supply, and Mayor Bud Lewis is as involved and as proud of this project as a father. Anything less than a unanimous vote by the council would be, frankly, a disappointment. But a project of this magnitude, even one that carries an unusually low level of controversy, is not an everyday occurrence for the water board, which must grant a waste discharge permit. This desalination plant would not produce waste in the conventional sense. It would produce ultra-clean potable water. In the process, briny water would be released into the power plant's cooling stream and diluted as it is returned to the ocean. The water quality board's scope is narrowly defined. It would be a public disservice if it ventured outside its mission or delayed the project. There's a lot to like about this endeavor. It would mean a reliable water source, year in and year out, for household consumers as well as Carlsbad's biotech companies, which require highly filtered water. The reverse osmosis membrane technology is in place; a pilot operation at the site has been turning out desalinated water since 2003. Contracts already are in place to purchase the water. A potential deal with the Metropolitan Water District would provide that the desalinated product would not be any more costly to buyers than imported water. The public would gain in several ways. Fifteen acres of lagoon and ocean frontage would be freed up for public access and recreation. The public-private partnership involving Poseidon Resources would generate $2 million a year in property tax revenues for Carlsbad and possibly $10 million a year in sales tax revenues for the region through equipment purchases. With timely approvals, this plant could be in operation by summer 2009 as the largest desalination plant in California. It would further the technology that promises to tap ocean water at an economical price for other thirsty regions.
...Get desal done
Water board vote is key on state level
Carlsbad's expected approval of the proposed desalination project would be a welcome boost to the region. It would not, however, assure its future.
The next approval must come from the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board in the form of a waste discharge permit, a prerequisite for applying for all state approvals. Prior to this week's meeting, the board released a tentative order of approval detailing what the builder, Poseidon Resources, must do to limit the impact on the ocean from the brine discharged in the desalination process.
In its environmental impact report, Poseidon expresses both its willingness to do so and the scientific data supporting the precautions it will take. That data, as the tentative order points out, show that the effect of the plant's discharge on ocean life is “de minimus.” That is, the effect is so slight that the cost of reducing it further outweighs the benefit.
Board staff members reiterate that position in their response to public comments, most of them from environmental activists whose aversion to desalination is clear. This aversion is reflected as well within the staff documents of other state agencies – the Costal Commission, the State Lands Commission, the Ocean Council – that can make or break seawater desalination throughout California.
This antagonism is worrisome, for it seems to stem not from science but from antipathy toward securing potable water supplies that might be “growth inducing” or harmful to the ocean.
Opposition from environmentalists hardens in cases of public-private partnerships, though these benefit all parties. The private firm pays the up-front costs of the plant and profits from its operation. Taxpayers profit from relief of financial risk in ensuring that the plant is properly built and operational.
Ensuring dependable water supplies through desalination is essential to San Diego. To reject state approvals of desalination plants because more potable water may mean population growth and minimal ocean degradation is to ignore current water needs and the necessity of economic growth. Environmental risks cannot and do not always warrant delaying human activity, prohibiting it or pricing it out of reach by adding questionable costs.
The staff of the Regional Water Quality Control Board considers the environmentalists' criticisms unfounded, as should the board. That would be one more approval process complete, and a model for several more that should progress as rationally, factually and beneficially.
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