Seawater desalination project 'urgent'

By: GIG CONAUGHTON - Staff Writer | Sunday, June 3, 2007 8:51 PM PDT ∞

SAN DIEGO -- The company that has dreamed for seven years of turning seawater from Carlsbad's coastline into drinking water said last week that California's seemingly evaporating water supplies should make it evident that their project is sorely needed.

Officials from Connecticut-based Poseidon Resources, Inc. also said Friday that they were submitting the fourth version of their permit application to the California Coastal Commission that afternoon, and remained confident they were on target to get a hearing with the commission in November that could let them start building next year.

Poseidon began petitioning the coastal commission for a permit nine months ago. The commission, an independent coastal watchdog created by the voters in 1972, is charged with protecting, conserving and restoring California's coast, and has long been considered the Poseidon plant's biggest obstacle, partly because the commission has worried it could increase growth and hurt the environment.

The company, working with the city of Carlsbad and a number of local water agencies, wants to build a $300 million plant that would produce up to 50 million gallons of desalted seawater a day at Carlsbad's Encina power plant to supplement local supplies. If built, officials said, it would be the largest seawater desalination plant in the Western hemisphere.

Poseidon and commission officials have said it is not uncommon for the application process to take a long time and several attempts. But Poseidon officials said they hope they've answered all questions.

"We will resubmit today, and this submittal ... thoroughly address any issues we think remain open," Poseidon Vice President Peter MacLaggan said. "We've also added significant discussion about the deteriorating situation of the state's water supplies."

MacLaggan made his statements the day after state officials shook up water officials around California by shutting down the pumps that deliver roughly two-thirds of Southern California's annual water supply through the Sacramento-San Joaquin bay delta to protect an endangered fish, the delta smelt.

State water and fish and game officials said Thursday that they hope to be able to restart the pumps in seven to 10 days, and that if they did, Southern Californians wouldn't lose any of their summer water supplies.

However, Southern California water leaders said the shutdown showed that the bay delta -- the heart of the state's 600 mile-long State Water Project -- was broken. They also said that Southern California was teetering on the edge of water supply havoc because of an eight-year drought on the Colorado River, a historically bad drought in Southern California this year, and the bay delta problems.

The cover letter for Poseidon's latest application to the coastal commission also mentioned the water-supply questions.

Tom Luster, the coastal commission's desalination expert, said Friday that the commission was certainly aware of the mounting water-supply pressures, and would take that into consideration.

But Luster said the Carlsbad Poseidon project would still have to meet the standards of the coastal commission and the wide-ranging act that created it.

"Even with those things (drought, State Water Project shutdown) that doesn't mean we all have to take whatever projects are proposed," Luster said. "They still have to go through the review."

The commission, meanwhile, has suggested in the past that it was uncomfortable with the idea that private companies, such as Poseidon, control the water desalination plants would produce. They've also worried publicly about the population growth such facilities could create, and about the general environmental questions revolving around sucking in and releasing seawater back into the sea.

Poseidon and regional water officials considered the Encina power plant to be the perfect spot to build a seawater desalting plant in part because it was already sucking seawater into its site to cool its electricity-producing turbines, and then spitting it back out into the sea.

Attaching a plant that would force some of that "cooling water" through salt-extracting membranes to create drinking water, company and water officials reasoned, would add very little -- if any -- environmental harm because the system was already in place.

However, NRG, the company that owns the Encina plant, complicated matters last year by announcing that they planned to "eventually" build an air-cooled plant and abandon the seawater "once-through-cooling system."

Luster said because of that, the coastal commission wants to know much more about how much environmental harm Poseidon would create. In particular, Luster said, the commission has wanted to know more about how much sea life might be killed.

To that end, Luster said the commission has asked Poseidon for more information about "alternative plans" -- whether Poseidon could use wells to get its seawater, and whether the plant could be located inland.

MacLaggan said Poseidon had cited and conducted studies showing that they would need a couple of miles of coastline to get enough water from wells, and that the water quality from those wells was not as good as water taken in through the existing cooling system. He also said that the company was bewildered by repeated questions about whether the plant could be located "five miles inland."

"We think it's silly to think that you could locate a seawater desalination plant five miles inland and have it be economically viable," MacLaggan said.

Luster, meanwhile, said commission staff members were simply trying to be as thorough as possible in examining the project.

Moving slowly

MacLaggan said Friday that company and water officials hoped Poseidon's latest application would finally be considered complete by Luster and the coastal commission staff.

Poseidon sent its initial application in late August.

Once the commission staff rules the application complete, it would make a recommendation on the project and the commission's 12 board members would hear and vote. Luster said that once Poseidon's latest application was received, the commission's staff had to respond, ruling the application complete, or asking for more information, within 30 days.

However, there is another issue that could complicate the process. Poseidon is also still trying to get a permit from the California State Lands Commission, which rents to the Encina power plant the land that Poseidon would use to build the plant.

Luster said that the coastal commission cannot consider Poseidon's application complete and forward it to commission board members for a hearing until the state commission issues a permit.

Poseidon officials said months ago that they expected to get the state lands permit -- but it has taken time.

Paul Thayer, the lands commission's executive director, said that the commission had not yet reached an agreement with Poseidon on how much the lease should cost. Thayer said he did not expect Poseidon's permit request to be on the commission's June agenda, and that the earliest the agency might hear the request would be August or September.

MacLaggan said Friday that Poseidon still thinks that will give them plenty of time to get the state lands permit, complete their coastal commission application, get a permit and the OK to build their long-discussed project from the commission in November.

-- Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.

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