Environmental groups sue over desalination

San Diego Union Tribune

By Michael Burge

January 15, 2008

CARLSBAD – Two environmental groups are suing the California Coastal Commission, challenging its approval of a proposed ocean-water desalination plant in Carlsbad. The lawsuit was due to be filed in San Diego Superior Court yesterday, said Marco Gonzalez, an attorney who prepared it on behalf of the Surfrider Foundation and Planning and Conservation League.

The 12-page complaint alleges that the desalination project would harm marine life in Agua Hedionda Lagoon, which would be the plant's water source. It also alleges that the commission did not make the findings necessary to approve the project.

Connecticut-based Poseidon Resources Inc. proposes a 500-million-gallon-a-day plant on the grounds of the Encina Power Station, at the foot of Cannon Road in Carlsbad.

The plant's original design would have used the stream of lagoon water that the power station uses to cool its steam-driven turbines. However, since the desalination plant was proposed, the power plant owner has announced it will phase out its water-cooled system in favor of an air-cooled plant.

The Coastal Commission's staff rejected Poseidon's proposal four times before clearing the application for consideration, saying that it would kill thousands of fish, larvae and other marine organisms and that there is better technology. It recommended that the commission not approve the project.

The commission overrode the recommendation and approved a permit Nov. 15 on a 9-3 vote, but the panel attached more than 20 conditions.

The lawsuit targets the desalination plant's intake method, among other issues, saying it does not meet California Coastal Act requirements.

“Commission committed an arbitrary and capricious abuse of discretion by approving the CDP (coastal development permit) without requiring the best technology available in the facility's design intake,” the suit says.

The lawsuit also says the commission, by approving the project, would allow the killing of garibaldi – the state marine fish, which is protected under state law.

“They were in such a rush to approve it they didn't do it right,” said Gonzalez, an attorney with Encinitas-based Coast Law Group.

Poseidon issued a statement yesterday calling the lawsuit “a desperate last attempt to delay the project,” noting that Surfrider's previous suits were rejected.

“This legal challenge – like the ones before it – lacks merit and blindly ignores over eight years of environmental research and study relied upon by permitting and regulatory agencies that have approved this project.”

Gonzalez said the new lawsuit is the first to target the desalination plant's intake method.

Surfrider Foundation is an environmental organization dedicated to protecting the world's oceans; the Planning and Conservation League is a nonprofit organization devoted to protecting California's natural resources.

Jamee Jordan Patterson, a supervising California deputy attorney general in San Diego, said she hadn't been served with a filed copy of the lawsuit yesterday, so she could not comment.