The California Coastal Commission has now approved the revised plan for Poseidon Resources to construct the long awaited Desalination plant to increase the water availability in San Diego County. I wrote a post on this late last year " Poseidon - Is Desalination In The Cards For San Diego " and the obstacles have now been overcome, though there is always a chance of a late court action that could delay construction again.
Environmentalists are opposed to this plant for various reasons and the Poseidon Resources rendered numerous compromises that finally got approval yesterday, pleasing the proponents of the new facility slated for Carlsbad at the Aqua Hedionda Lagoon location.
Poseidon has in mind maybe as many as 11 other coastal sites for desalination plants and this new approval will give them a sort track to run on of what will be expected in any other proposals that might be being contemplated.
The one of the two major stumbling blocks that was overcome with the new agreement is to reduce its carbon debt by subtracting the current amount of energy used to pump the equivalent amount of water that the desalination would produce by the Metropolitan Water department . But the carbon debt would be reduced even further with it's plan to add solar energy devises for it power and the 1 million dollar plan for re-forestation of areas burned in the 2007 wildfires. The plan also calls for the Poseidon plant to purchase about 15 tons of available carbon offsets from other sources.
The 2nd provision of the revised plans calls for Poseidon to purchase a bit over 55 acres to produce a marine habitat ( most likely other wetlands) that could replace the loss of fish, fish larvae and other plankton that would be trapped and killed in it's system intake of ocean water through it's reverse osmosis membranes. Currently the Encina Power plant is using about the same amount of water in it's intake cooling system, which will be abandoned as it converts over to an air cooled system. It was the Power plant that created the Aqua Hedionda Lagoon adjacent to the power plant to enhance the amount of marine life.
Originally Poseidon had offered to provide 35 acres for marine habitation but that amount was increased to 55 acres leading to this final agreement. Poseidon can start construction next year and can be providing up to 50 million gallons of fresh drinking water per day by 2011.
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Courtesy of William Johnson GRI CRS e-PRO author of The Real Estate Text Book and The Voice of San Diego Real Estate
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It does seem like one of those "catch 22" situations. There is a need for fresh water but should it be done at the expense of the ecosystem? Should that small part of the ecosystem prevent solving a need for fresh water? It does sounds like they have devised a good compromise.