New plant gets OK - Water board approves Poseidon desalination facility; more hurdles ahead.

The Orange County Register

By Pat Brennan

August 26, 2006

A seawater desalination plant proposed for Huntington Beach got the green light from regional water quality regulators, though potential roadblocks still loom for the $250 million project.

The Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board approved a permit for the plant, proposed by Poseidon Resources Inc., on Friday at a meeting in Fountain Valley.

The desalination plant could produce as much as 50 million gallons of drinking water per day.

But to do that, the plant would draw seawater from the existing intake pipe at the AES power plant.

It is that aspect of its operations that worries environmental activists. Federal and state efforts are underway to require such plants to reduce the amount of tiny ocean organisms that are sucked into power plant cooling systems and destroyed – eggs, larvae and other small creatures important to the ocean food chain.

Larger sealife, such as fish, are normally screened out.

Joe Geever, of the environmental group Surfrider Foundation, said that approving the proposed desalination plant could result in preventing a conversion to an alternative cooling system that would not require seawater intake.

"It's putting the cart before the horse to grant a discharge permit to Poseidon now, while there are so many questions about the intake at AES," Geever told the board.

The staff of the state Coastal Commission, which also must approve the project, has another concern: whether Poseidon would continue to draw in seawater if the power plant were to cease operations. The commission has not set a date for consideration of Poseidon's proposal.

New regulations proposed by the state Water Board would require coastal power plants to explore ways to significantly reduce destruction of ocean organisms.

The permit granted to the company Friday, however, includes provisions to reopen debate if physical conditions at the plant change – for example, if Poseidon must switch from the intake pipe to another water source, such as extracting water from beneath beach sand.

Those provisions should cover ceasing plant operations, said Kurt Berchtold, assistant executive officer at the Santa Ana regional water board.

The board also granted AES a permit to continue operating. Both permits are good for five years.

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