Coastal Commission staff opposes Carlsbad desal project By Gig Conaughton North County Times November 3, 2007 NORTH COUNTY -- Staff members of the California Coastal Friday recommended denying a key permit to a long-discussed project that would turn millions of gallons of seawater off the coast of Carlsbad into drinking water. Commissioners are scheduled to consider the recommendation Nov. 15 in San Diego. The agency staff, after months of reviewing information, said the project should be denied because it would harm marine life and water quality, hurt Agua Hedionda lagoon, and create millions of pounds of "greenhouse gases" every year that could worsen global warming. Officials from Poseidon Resources Inc. disputed the Coastal Commission staff's findings and said they thought the agency's commissioners would still approve the project. The company has studied the idea of building the $300 million plant at Carlsbad's Encina Power Plant since 2000. Water officials and political leaders across the county have said they hope the plant will be approved, citing the importance of new water sources like desalination because of increasing pressures on state water supplies. Semiarid Southern California has historically relied on water imported from the Colorado River and Northern California. Northern California's snowmelt and rainfall are delivered through the massive State Water Project, a 600-mile series of dams, reservoirs, pumps and pipelines. However, those traditional water sources are being stressed. The Colorado River is in its eighth year of drought. Meanwhile, in August, a federal judge ruled that State Water Project supplies to the region would have to be cut by up to 30 percent next year to protect an endangered fish, the delta smelt. The Coastal Commission was created by state voters in 1972 to protect and restore the coast. The agency must issue a permit before the Carlsbad project may be built. Poseidon Vice President Peter MacLaggan said Friday that the company, which has proposed to build the plant with the city of Carlsbad as its main partner, was not surprised that Coastal Commission staff recommended rejecting the plant. "They've made it clear for a real long time that they have not been willing to approve this project," he said. But MacLaggan said the staff's conclusions were wrong. He said Poseidon had committed to making the plant "carbon neutral" by investing $12 million to use the highest-efficiency motors. He added that the rest of the pollution that the plant would produce would be partially offset by investing money to improve motors and reduce pollution in other power plants. He said plant would do little damage to fish, microscopic larvae and marine life, and would actually protect Agua Hedionda lagoon. MacLaggan said that if the desalination plant is not built, the popular lagoon could disappear -- because Poseidon has committed to doing the occasional dredging, now done by Encina's operators that keeps the lagoon from filling with sand and silt. The key environmental questions about the project revolve around its design and its intention to use the Encina plant's current seawater-cooling system. When Poseidon started studying the idea of building a seawater desalination plant, they believed the Encina Power Plant was the perfect site because it had the power needed to treat seawater. The site also had environmental permits to suck water out of the ocean to cool its electricity-producing turbines before spitting it back out to the ocean. Poseidon's plant would take a portion of that cooling water and force it through high-tech filters with powerful electrical pumps. Half of the water, 50 million gallons a day, would become salt-free drinking water. The other half, now twice as salty, would be sent back to sea. However, the plant's owners have said they intend to move to an air-cooled system in 10 years to 20 years. Poseidon has an agreement to continue to use the water-cooling system if that happens. But commission staff have recommended that the company get its seawater some other way, by digging subsurface or slant wells on the beach, or by putting the plant offshore. MacLaggan said all of those suggestions "were highly destructive to the marine environment." "I think when you look at the key issues they raised and they say those are superior alternatives, they're absolutely wrong," MacLaggan said. Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com Copyright 1999-2007, California Coastal Coalition Phone: (760) 944-3564