Water-Quality Board Approves Desalination Plant Permit

The Log

By Kevin King

September 7, 2006

SAN DIEGO - A California state water-quality board approved a permit for a water supply development company on August 16, setting up one final hurdle for a desalination plant in Carlsbad.

The San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board unanimously approved a permit for Poseidon Resources Inc. that would allow it to discharge high-concentrated salt water for its proposed Carlsbad desalination plant.

The $300 million plant would be adjacent to the Encina Power Station and would siphon the water used to cool the power station in order to produce usable, drinkable, water.

Water to meet the population growth needs of California, the longer projected lifespan of the population and the high birth rate needs to be addressed, according to Poseidon Senior Vice President Peter MacLaggan.

The proposed desalination plant uses a method called "once-through" that intakes about 100 million gallons of water and filters it through membranes to produce 50 million gallons of usable, drinkable water. The remaining 50 gallons is put back into the ocean, twice as salty.

Environmental groups worry that the once-through method could harm aquatic life by sucking it into the plant with the water.

"Every single cubic inch of water has organisms in it," said Todd Cardiff, environmental attorney for Coast Law Group. "[The method] kills a huge amount of fish life."

The once-through method, which environmentalists thought was being phased out by the state, could be extended for any desalination plant, he said. Cardiff sites alternatives to the method, such as conservation, desalinating "beach wells" and filtering water from sanitation plants.

Beach well desalination intakes salt water in the sand beneath the ocean floor. This method would pose little risk to aquatic life, but is not feasible for the Carlsbad location, because there are no "beach wells" to accommodate the method.

The Encina Power Station also had its permit renewed through 2011 by the water-quality board during the same meeting. The plant pulls water from a nearby lagoon and uses it with the once-through method to cool the station, according to David Lloyd, secretary for Cabrillo Power LLC, which operates the station.

But the power plant could switch to an air-cooled system, if the state deems it necessary. That would mean the desalination plant would have to run its own intake pipe and that could pose problems for Poseidon's permits.

The Coastal Commission is the last governmental body that stands between Poseidon and a plant in Carlsbad. It will base its approval or disapproval of the plant on feasible alternatives, effects on the environment and aquatic life and whether the plant serves a public or private interest.

Poseidon submitted an application to the coastal commission in late August and expects a decision by early summer of next year.

About Coast Law Group

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