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Newsom pushes private seawater desalting plant over local and environmental opposition
Sustainability Feb 26, 2021
Poseidon Water proposes to build a large seawater desalination plant on the site of the AES Huntington Beach Power Station.
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Poseidon Water proposes to build a large seawater desalination plant on the site of the AES Huntington Beach Power Station. When Gov. Gavin Newsom was photographed dining at an opulent Napa Valley restaurant during a surge in coronavirus cases, many Californians saw it as hypocrisy.
For opponents of a planned $1-billion desalination plant along the Orange County coast, however, the optics were menacing. The unmasked Newsom was celebrating the birthday of a lobbyist for Poseidon Water, which is close to obtaining final government approval for one of the country’s biggest seawater desalination plants.
Poseidon boasts that the facility will provide a local, inexhaustible source of water for Southern California. Critics complain that Newsom and his political appointees are exerting heavy influence to benefit a private company that would produce some of the state’s most expensive supplies.
Emails obtained by The Times and the environmental group California Coastkeeper Alliance through the state Public Records Act indicate that top California Environmental Protection Agency officials have been involved in a water board’s review of the complex proposal. In addition, Newsom took the unusual step of replacing a Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board member who was highly critical of the project. […]
