Desal plant gets go-ahead from Water Quality board

Carlsbad project still needs thumbs-up from other agencies to start construction

By BRADLEY J. FIKES - Staff Writer | Wednesday, April 9, 2008 8:16 PM PDT ∞

SAN DIEGO ----- Carlsbad's proposed desalination plant got a thumbs-up Wednesday from the agency responsible for the county's water quality.

On a vote of 5-2, the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board approved an environmental protection plan for the desalination plant.

The plant, costing $300 million, is to be built by Poseidon Resources Inc., which has received contracts from various local water districts. Poseidon, a privately held company, expects the plant will take about two years to complete once construction begins.

A wide coalition of business groups supports the plant because it will provide a new source of water when businesses and residents have to cope with long-term restrictions on water supply. Opponents of the project say the environmental protections are inadequate and that the board should have delayed its decision until it coordinates with the other agencies on plans for the project.

The board is one of several state agencies with authority over the project, including the California Coastal Commission. If the other needed approvals are granted, including a second vote by the board this fall, construction on the plant can begin before the end of the year, said Peter MacLaggan, a Poseidon vice president.

Poseidon has worked on the project for nearly a decade. It plans to build the desalination plant next to the Encina Power Station and Agua Hedionda Lagoon. The plant would turn up to 50 million gallons a day of seawater into drinking water, improving reliability of the county's shaky water supply.

Desalination has long been eyed as a potential water source for the county. However, desalination was and remains significantly more expensive than water imported from the Colorado River and San Francisco Bay-Delta, the county's two main sources of water.

But in recent years, desalination has become more attractive, because of newer and less expensive technology, and because other sources of water are less available.

Last year, water imports from Northern California were cut by up to 30 percent on a court order to protect an endangered fish, and the cuts appear likely to continue indefinitely. And the Metropolitan Water District, the water wholesaler that supplies districts through the San Diego County Water Authority, is subsidizing sales of desalinated water.

Joe Geever, California policy coordinator for the Surfrider Foundation, which has sued to stop the project, told the water quality board that it should delay deciding on Poseidon's environmental protection plan, and that waiting for other agencies could actually speed the process.

Surfrider says the desalination process as proposed by Poseidon would harm ocean life by killing organisms taken into the plant and by discharging brine into the ocean, increasing its salinity in the region.

Geever said the plan needed more work, a view endorsed by board Chairman Richard Wright, who voted against the plan.

"I don't think the plan is ripe enough ... to receive our approval," Wright said.

But other environmental groups, such as the Agua Hedionda Lagoon Foundation, have endorsed Poseidon's plan.

Numerous North County elected officials and representatives of local water districts spoke in favor of the desalination plan, both on environmental grounds and because of the county's need for a new water source.

"We have a serious water problem right now, not two years, or three years, or four years from now," said Gary Arant, general manager of the Valley Center Municipal Water District.

The precarious state of the county's water supply lends "a sense of urgency" to the project, said Ken Weinberg, director of water resources for the San Diego County Water Authority.

"These next several years are going to be extremely precarious for us in terms of supply reliability. We were counting on this project to be online by 2011 or so."

Councilwoman Julie Nygaard said the lagoon's current environmentally healthy state is a result of human intervention that keeps the lagoon open.

"Its natural state was a mudflat filled with stinking water," Nygaard said, which, she pointed out, is what the lagoon's name means in Spanish.

Others speaking in favor of the plan included Gary Knight, president and chief executive of the San Diego North Economic Development Council; Cameron Durckel, a representative for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; and Mitch Beauchamp, a representative for the Sweetwater Authority, a water district in the South County that has contracted to buy water from the Poseidon plant.

Contact staff writer Bradley J. Fikes at (760) 739-6641 or bfikes@nctimes.com. Comment at nctimes.com.

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