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Thanks Everyone For Making it Happen

• California Coastal Commission votes unanimously to deny Poseidon their Coastal Permit.

Poseidon Fact Sheets

• Here are a collection of fact sheets and other important documents regarding Poseidon. The fact sheets include:
  a. Legal Inconsistencies with the Huntington Beach Local Coastal Program and the
  California Coastal Act
  b. Profile of $650B Brookfield Asset Management and Poseidon Water
  c. Carlsbad: A Cautionary Experience
  d. Lack of Need for Poseidon Water and Alternatives
  e. Coastal Hazards: Sea Level Rise, Flooding and Tsunami
  f. Coastal Hazards: Sea Level Rise Simulations and Scenarios
  g. Seismic Hazards
  h. Desalination Facilities as Critical Infrastructure
  i. Climate Change and GHG Emissions
  j. Environmental Justice
  k. Marine Life Impacts: Marine Life Mortality: Entrainment & Toxic Brine
  l. Marine Life Impacts: Impact to MPAs
  m. Inadequate Mitigation for Impacts to Marine Life and Wetlands
  

Coast Commission Staff Recommends Denial

• The staff’s report can be found here.

  Desalination is one of the most energy intensive ways to obtain water, and the project’s energy use would hamper state efforts to cut back on energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. The facility would also be in a low-lying, geologically unstable area where sea level rise, flooding, and tsunami and seismic risks are likely to render the site difficult to access or operate in an emergency, or even on a regular basis, in the future.

OCWD Questioning $1.4B+ Project

• Martin Wisckol wrote a good article for the OCR highlighting issues with the project. These include:
  – None of OCWD’s clients want the water.
  – Irvine Water District voted against taking the water.
  – Poseidon is having problems meeting the permitting requirements.
  – A 2018 study showed that the worst case scenario requires only 50% of Poseidon’s water.
  Article can be found here.

Desal Done Right Speeds Through Permits

• As Poseidon, desal done wrong, has to delay again for their permits. Doheny, desal done right, easily gets their first permit. So if you hear Poseidon complain about how difficult it is to permit, just look at Doheny and see how easy it can be when the project is good. OC Register article.
  

Poseidon Delays Coastal Commission Hearing

• Is it:
  – They are poorly managed?
  – They are working on replacing people on the California Coastal Commission?
  – Looking to move the meeting out of the region?
  – Being forced to figure out where the pipeline will go?
  – All the above?
  Here is the latest Newsletter from R4RD.

CCC Mobilization Mondays

• Join Speakers every Monday to get ready for March 17 CCC hearing.

  

  RSVP: keepHBdesalFree@gmail.com

October Update

• R4RD continues its opposition to the Poseidon Water/Brookfield seawater desalination project in HB by preparing for the project’s hearing with the California Coastal Commission (CCC). Though the relevant CCC hearing scheduled for November has been postponed, no future date has been, as yet, set. R4RD must now plan for a December 2021 hearing date, although February 2022 will be more likely. This is due to Poseidon’s unprecedented demands and unprincipled foot-dragging.
  Read more here.

Good Desal v Bad Desal

• Martin Wisckol of OCR had a great article discussing the benefits of the Doheny Desal plant. It can be found here.

RWQCB votes to approve Poseidon but with conditions.

• R4RD is not happy with yesterday’s Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) hearing. But we will keep at it. The upcoming Coastal Commission hearing will be Poseidon’s biggest hurdle.
  During yesterday’s RWQCB hearing the board members spent a great deal of time wrestling with the fact, among its many other problems, Poseidon desal proponents are unreliable and you can’t trust them.
  Therefore, while the RWQCB did approve Poseidon’s permits, they did put some pre-project conditions in place.
  You probably know this already, but Poseidon has been pulling water and marine life out of the ocean in the Carlsbad area for nearly 6 years but has done next to none of the environmental mitigation they were required to do. Therefore, in Huntington Beach, Poseidon can only move forward after they design the bulk of their mitigation and bring it back for approval by the RWQCB. Only then can Posiedon begin to discharge wastewater into the ocean.
  That is weaker than the original proposal from the RWQCB staff which was to prohibit the company from polluting local waters at all until mitigation fully nailed down. And far weaker than Ocean Plan guidelines designed to assure marine life is adequately protected. However, Poseidon objected to those provisions saying they would kill the project then used political pressure to get what they wanted, which was easier permit conditions.
  There are some really good articles about the meeting’s outcome in the Los Angeles Times, Voice of OC, and Orange County Register that do a good job of summarizing the hearing and I urge you to take a moment to read them. And don’t despair and don’t give up. Trust us when I tell you that corrupt politically driven projects like Poseidon aren’t easy to defeat but they can be defeated. The next step is an appeal to the State Water Board, then Poseidon has to go back to the State Lands Commission.
  Poseidon also must face the Coastal Commission, which has indicated they want much more mitigation (mitigation that Poseidon says will kill the project) and will closely examine the many problems with Poseidon’s proposed site including earthquake faults, flooding, and sea-level rise.
  And there will be lawsuits that will further delay Poseidon and make their Ponzi scheme even less certain.
  It’s not easy facing down a multi-national corporation whose interest in our coast is to exploit and profit from it. But with your help, we have kept Poseidon out of our community and off our coast for over 15 years. We just have to keep at it and we will.

Newsom and Support of Poseidon

• Alejandro Sobrera has a great article about Governor Newsom and why it seems contrary to his goals. Article can be read here.

Timeline of Newsom and Poseidon

• 

Status In Carlsbad

• Great presentation to the CCC by Mandy Sackett

SD Desal Lesson to OC

• Marco Gonzalez has a great commentary in the SD Union Tribune.

  You don’t have to look too far for proof that Poseidon will be an unreliable partner.

California Could Have Stored Abundant Water Underground

• Newsdeeply has a great article about storing water during rainy years.  See it here.

  California has much more potential to store water underground in aquifers than in surface reservoirs. The state should be focused on this opportunity for future years, writes scientist Mohammad Safeeq.

Future of Desal in CA

• Interesting Article by Tony Davis.

  The future of coastal desalination in California could be determined by the decision on permits for a plant in Huntington Beach

The Ocean Isn’t the Answer in California

• Justin Fox posted an article on Bloomberg View about why desal does not make sense.

  Whenever there’s a drought in California, a seemingly obvious source of new water supply beckons. The state abuts a giant ocean. Why not just take the salt out of some of that seawater? It’s the high-tech, forward-looking thing to do, right? It’s also the really expensive thing to do.

  Read more here.

New Stanford Report: Desal Location is Key

• New Report from Stanford highlights the imports that the location of a desalination plant is critical for its overall success.  Key among these are:

  1. Easy access to renewable engine
  2. Ability to use subsurface intake
  3. Availability of other water supplies

  Article can be found here.

Managing Drought: Learning from Australia

• A new report shows strategies developed and mistakes made during Australia’s decade-long millennium drought provide a powerful resource for California, as the state enters its fifth year of severe drought.  The report can be found here.

South OC has little demand for Desal Water

• South Orange County has to import most of their water, but not too interested in expensive desal water.  Orange County Water District General Manager Michael Markus said the South Coast Water District plans to build a plant at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point that was expected to produce 15 million gallons of desalinated water per day.  However, Kennedy said
  

  [Doheny Desal] expected production was cut to 5 million gallons per day because of a lack of interest from surrounding water agencies

  The LA Times article can be found here.