Poseidon Resources’ Carlsbad DesalinationPlant Is a Bad Deal for Southern California

WATER

Poseidon misrepresents its past, the project’s cost tothe public and the project’s environmental impacts. Itsproposal is a bad deal for Southern California consum-ers and the environment and its public subsidy requestshould be rejected.

Poseidon Resources Has a Recordof Failure

Poseidon’s claim that its “experience and expertise allowsfor the delivery of quality projects on time and within budget”

is not supported by its track record of attempt-ing to build ocean desalination plants. In fact, the com-pany’s only major attempt at building a desalinationproject — in 1999 in Tampa Bay, Florida — never got off the ground.

After Poseidon’s partner declared bankrupt-cy, Tampa Bay Water, the public water agency, boughtthe plant back.

Since that time, there is no evidence tosuggest that Poseidon has gained any more experience building large-scale ocean desalination facilities. Back inFlorida, the Tampa Bay desalination plant was $40 mil-lion over budget and ve years late, and it has yet to pro-duce the 25 million gallons a day (MGD) it promised on aregular basis.

Yet Poseidon plans to use the same reverseosmosis technology used in Tampa Bay in Carlsbad, for aplant twice the size.

Poseidon Can’t Be Trusted: ItsPrivate Project Relies on PublicFunding and Support

Poseidon’s claim that “public water agencies serving thecities of Carlsbad, Oceanside, San Marcos, San Diego,Encinitas, Solana Beach, Rancho Santa Fe, Escondido,Chula Vista, National City and the unincorporated com-munities of Rainbow, Bonsall and Fallbrook will be thedirect beneciaries of a new, affordable and reliable water

n order to ensure that Southern California is able to meet its future water demand,environmental and economic needs, public funding should prioritize projects thatsupport regional independence, greenhouse gas reduction, job creation and consum-er and environmental health protection. While policymakers and other stakehold-ers are proposing various solutions that include increased conservation and reuseprojects, low-impact development and repairing leaking infrastructure, PoseidonResources, a private company, is seeking public nancial support for an expensive,risky and environmentally damaging desalination project in Carlsbad, California.

A desalination plant (not owned by Posiedon). Photo by Irina Belousa/iStockphoto.

supply developed at no expense to the region’s taxpay-ers”

is misleading. Poseidon’s nancing

relies

on publicsubsidies and support. Poseidon is currently seeking$250 per acre-foot of water produced from the Metropol-itan Water District of Southern California (MWD), up to$14 million per year, which could add up to $350 millionover a 25-year period.

MWD gets its funding from a vari-ety of sources, including ratepayers and property taxes.

Poseidon has also applied for $480 million in tax-exempt bonds from the California Debt Limit Allocation Commit-tee,

which would reduce nancing costs by giving a tax break to bondholders. In effect, this would give Poseidona multimillion-dollar federal and state subsidy.

Poseidon’s Carlsbad ProjectMisrepresents EnvironmentalImpacts

Poseidon

’

s claim that its “Carlsbad and HuntingtonBeach desalination projects will be the most technologi-cally advanced, energy efcient and environmentally sensitive in the world”

downplays the potential environ-mental damage from its plant, which includes threats tomarine life and water quality as well as carbon emissionsthat contribute to global warming.The Carlsbad plant relies on an antiquated once-throughcooling system that will suck in 304 MGD of ocean waterto create the projected 50 MGD of drinking water

— po-tentially killing large quantities of sh and other aquaticlife in the process. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that power plants in California usingsuch structures destroy 312.9 million pounds of sh each year, a $13.6 million loss to California shermen.

TheClean Water Act requires cooling water intake structuresto reect the best technology available for minimizingadverse environmental impact, which has prompted theState Water Resources Control Board to create a draftpolicy to virtually eliminate the impacts of these struc-tures.

It is unclear what will happen to the proposeddesalination plant if the cooling intakes are closed. Wastewater from the proposed plant poses further environmental risks. Wastewater from desalination plantscontains high concentrations of salt and may containtoxic chemicals and heavy metals from the industrialprocess.

Changes to water quality and temperature fromsuch waste products could harm coastal water quality andmarine life.

Of the 304 MGD of ocean water the plantsucks in, only 50 MGD will come out as drinking water;57 MGD will become wastewater.

The wastewater will bemixed with the remaining 197 MGD and discharged back into the ocean.

The proposed plant will also create new demand forenergy at a time when the state is attempting to reduce itsenergy use and greenhouse gas emissions. The proposedplant will require 274,400 megawatt hours a year (MWh/ yr).

The typical new house in California uses 7,035kilowatt hours a year (kWh/yr),

which means that thedesalination plant will use the same amount of electricity as 39,000 such homes. There are currently 31,521 house-holds in the entire city of Carlsbad.