Plant will not be beneficial

When members of the City Council on Tuesday ponder whether to approve

the environmental report for the Poseidon desalination plant, one

point should be foremost in their minds: Will Huntington Beach

residents truly benefit from this water treatment facility?

The debate promises to be dramatic and complicated, though what

the council actually is deciding is fairly straight forward: Does the

environmental report adequately address the proposal’s many affects

on the community and its surroundings? But the drama already playing

out among Poseidon officials and those who oppose the plan make it

clear that there will be more to the decision than whether the report

has all its I’s dotted and T’s crossed. Both sides have been treating

this meeting as a final battleground. The emotions of the opponents

are tense, and they predict terrible changes to their neighborhoods

and homes -- lengthy construction along city streets, unclear damage

to water quality and marine life and the presence of yet another

industrial plant in their backyards. Poseidon officials argue that

the plant will bring millions in tax revenue to the city and rightly

point out that our need for clean, reliable sources of water

continues to grow.

When faced with all the emotion, members of the council should

return to the basic question: Will residents -- their neighbors --

truly benefit from this plant?

The details of the report are as esoteric as they come, and they

raise many difficult questions. What effects will the plant have on

the environment? Specifically, will it cause more pollution in an

area so well-known for closures and warnings? How long will

construction take to install pipelines to carry the water to its

buyer? Who will that buyer be? Will Poseidon’s existence prolong an

AES intake pipe beyond its permitted use?

When faced with the score of details, members of the council

should remember to ask: Will residents of my city really benefit from

this plant?

If the council members ask themselves that question, there is only

one answer they can reach: No. And so they should turn down -- for a

second time -- the report, because it cannot adequately suggest ways

to offset its effects on neighbors. Why? Because the additional

burdens it would bring are untenable on the already unfairly burdened

southeastern part of the city.

In their backyards already is the AES plant, which even with

improved environmental controls is not a neighbor to envy. The former

Ascon landfill, where chromic acid, sulfuric acid, fuel oils and a

form of plastic called styrene were dumped, continues to be an

environmental concern. The Orange County Sanitation District is

another big industrial plant for people there to contend with, as is

the ongoing pipeline construction down Bushard.

The southeast part of town, in other words, has more than its

share of burdens. Adding to that with a plant that won’t even produce

water for the city makes no sense, especially given that there is a

healthy debate about whether our growing need for water cannot be met

by other methods, including conservation.

OKing such a plant also runs counter to what city leaders say they

want the future of Surf City to hold. Gone are the days when oil

fields along the beaches are a good use of land. Today, Huntington

Beach is a booming tourist destination, one with a skyrocketing real

estate market. Hotels or $5-million homes along Pacific Coast Highway

are smarter developments -- if not still controversial. They are the

kinds of developments that will benefit residents. Poseidon is not.

There simply is no compelling enough reason for allowing the

construction of this plant that overrides the hardship it brings to

the city.