Poseidon, San Diego County to Desalinate

By: Robert Casanova

 With over ten years of planning and careful deliberation completed, desalination on a major scale is closer than ever to becoming a reality for citizens of San Diego County. The debate over whether or not to bring this technology to our coastline had been a heavily contested one, with opposition coming from both the financial and environmental sectors. Having jumped its final hurdles, construction of the Carlsbad Desalination Project is a go.

 Slated to break ground in January 2010, the project was yet again put on hold due to a last ditch effort to derail the plant’s construction, led by environmental litigator Marco Gonzalez. This litigation had been the tenth and final failing lawsuit brought against the Poseidon Resource group, who has been awarded its final permits to begin phase one of the project as soon as possible. Poseidon’s Vice President Scott Maloni offered this statement when asked to respond publicly to the project’s opposition, “We hope opponents will reconsider their choice to obstruct the project’s inevitable startup and instead opt to work with us in a constructive manner to ensure the project reaches its promise as the most technologically advanced, energy efficient and environmentally-friendly seawater desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere,” a statement that has the support of the majority of the county. Maloni also made a remark undoubtedly intended to ease the minds of those worried about climate change “global warming” when he stated, “We are also grateful to the California Air Resources Board for acknowledging our unprecedented and voluntary commitment to make the desalination project the first large-scale infrastructure project in the state to be net carbon neutral,”

 With final permits in hand and developing budgets met, construction is ready to begin on this large scale water seawater desalination plant. The plant will be the first of its kind in the U.S. becoming our largest and most advanced ocean to tap provider of potable water. An estimated 2100 new jobs will be created during the two and a half year building process, a process that will eventually bring clean, safe, and plentiful water to over 300,000 customers in San Diego County at the rate 50-million-gallons-per-day. Researchers for the Poseidon group have estimated that the project will create hundreds of millions of dollars in economic stimulus in California over the next two years. The majority of people who will benefit from this plant reside in the cities and outlying areas of Carlsbad and Oceanside CA.

 Long has California been looked at as a trend setter when evaluated by the rest of the country, and it seems as if we are at it again. Many are excited about the enormous benefits this plant will offer a thirsty region, in hopes that this trend will spread through the state, helping to finally end California’s dependency on outside water sources. With completion scheduled for mid 2012, the Carlsbad Desalination Project will soon get its chance to make a positive contribution to the lives of so many here in southern California who had previously wondered, where will we get our water? Hopefully in the future, many more of us on the west coast, will have our thirst quenched by the sea.

More info on the Carlsbad Desalination Project:

http://www.carlsbad-desal.com/default.asp

Pros and cons of desalination:

http://greennature.com/article69.html

Carlsbad Desalination Plant environmental impact report:

http://www.carlsbad-desal.com/EIR.asp