This story was reported for San Diego News Network on December 16, 2009.
Ten years ago, Poseidon Resources embarked on a journey to turn the ocean’s water into a usable supply for human consumption.
A myriad of lawsuits and battles later, the Carlsbad Desalination Project is now more than a month into its construction amid California’s water crisis — and not only are San Diegans awaiting for the plant’s faucet to turn on, but Americans are anticipating the largest desalination project in U.S. history.
“It’s an exhilarating feeling… it’s very rewarding,” said Poseidon Vice President Scott Maloni. “It’s a verification of all the sound science and expert engineering we’ve worked on the past ten years.”
Poseidon’s Carlsbad Desalination Project, which will be the largest in the country in less than three years, has faced major criticism among groups such as the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation, and most recently, from the San Diego Coastkeeper and the Surfrider Foundation.
Despite criticism though, the project continues to move forward with the only hurdles in sight in the rearview mirror.
The plant will produce 50 million gallons of drinking water a day, enough to meet the needs of about 300,000 residents in San Diego County. The project supersedes the current largest American desalination plant in Tampa Bay, Fla. which produces 25 million gallons a day.
Maloni said the desalination project, which has captured the attention of millions, will re-define the West Coast’s relationship with water.
“For locals, the project is a drought-proof drinking water supply that helps reduce our dependence on imported water,” Maloni said. “For Californians, it forever changes the relationship the state has with the Pacific Ocean.”
Maloni said the project has “set the bar very high, in terms of environmental responsibility” citing a carbon neutral system.
But Marco Gonzalez, one of the leading opponents of the desalination project and the executive director of the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation, said the plant poses major environmental dangers.
“The proposal is to co-locate the desalination facility with seawater intake infrastructure for a power plant that is slated to be removed, and the state is in the process of making illegal such ‘open ocean’ seawater intakes,” Gonzalez wrote in an e-mail. “The notion that Poseidon would be able to build a new plant using a technology that devastates marine life on the eve of such technology being rendered obsolete and illegal is absurd, and a huge policy blunder. Our alleged need for water should not take such dramatic precedence over the protection of marine life. We have not yet optimized (let alone maximized) water conservation and recycling.”
Gonzalez’s concern with desalination projects is backed by a study produced by the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information.
The research center noted that “desalination plants have the potential for adversely affecting the environment in many ways.”
First, the study stated, the water waste from desalination is a “heavily concentrated brine solution” that could kill marine organisms. The impact of rising water temperatures and noises from “high-pressure pumps,” among other concerns may also be a problem from desalination projects. The study also researches desalination projects in the Middle East, a region that encompasses nearly 75 percent of the world’s desalination plants.
Another study conducted by the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, noted that “the major indirect environmental impacts is the use of the energy required by desalination plants, particularly when electricity is produced by burning of oil, which in turn boosts the process of global warming.”
Further, Gonzalez said Poseidon is still lacking funding for many of its operations and is constructing the plant, “largely for PR [public relations] value.” He also said an appeal will be made with the California Lands Commission’s, a state agency that has partial authority over the project.
But Maloni dismissed claims by Gonzalez stating that the “project’s primary antagonist has had a whole host of reasons to stop the construction of the project and has been wrong every time — that’s been the opinion of every court of law; not once has his opinion been validated.”
Maloni also addressed the possible appeal to the State Lands Commission.
“If Mr. Gonzalez chooses to appeal the State Lands Commission lawsuit that he lost, that fact alone doesn’t require us to stop project construction,” Maloni said. “The SLC approval is not a project construction approval. Even if Mr. Gonzalez was to prevail, and he won’t, it wouldn’t stop the project from continuing with construction. The same holds true for the State Water Board appeal. Again, please note that Mr. Gonzalez on two previous occasions appealed the Regional Board’s approval of our project to the State Board. Both appeals were rejected.”
Regardless of the political battles between desalination proponents and environmentalists — Gonzalez said his group has “succeeded in educating regulators, the public and future applicants.”
A series of studies conducted by Rea & Parker Research show support for desalination practices among San Diegans in the last few years. In its March 2009 study, 85 percent of 700 people surveyed in the county said they found “desalination to be either very important or somewhat important in maintaining a reliable water supply.” In 2005, 69 percent were in favor of investing in desalination practices. (See Chart)
The importance of desalination deemed by San Diegans may have been shaped by California’s ongoing water crisis.
In November, the State Legislature passed a comprehensive package to address California’s water crisis and the depleting supply of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta which supplies water to the majority of Californians. However, voters will have to decide in November next year whether to allocate $11.4 billion in funding for water projects — including that of private companies. Locally, San Diegans have been emposed with several restrictions to their water usage including watering lawns on certain days and varying reductions forced on businesses.
But once the Carlsbad Desalination Project is completed, water ways will change said Bob Yamada, the planning manager of the San Diego County’s Water Authority.
Yamada said the project will encompass about 10 percent of the region’s water supply and will serve as a “highly reliable supply that isn’t weather dependent.”
What the future holds for future desalination plants is still unknown said Maloni.
“The project is definitely a roadmap for building large-scale desalination plants,” Maloni said. “But no two desalination plants are the same. That means the door isn’t wide open for every project.”
City News Service contributed to this report. Hoa Quach is the political editor for the San Diego News Network.