The vote still should be no

It looks as though Huntington Beach might be able to get a little bit more out of the Poseidon desalination plant than originally thought.

Discussions now underway between the city and the company hoping to build the $250-million treatment facility could result in the city getting a tidy list of benefits from the controversial plant, benefits that go beyond an anticipated $2 million a year in tax revenue.

Among these possible new benefits are:

* Poseidon would provide the city with 3 million gallons of water per day at a cost just below what the city pays to import water.

* Poseidon would promise to provide water in the case of an emergency such as an earthquake.

* Poseidon would pay the city at least $100,000 a year for the right to run pipelines through the city, on top of typical tax payments, as well as up to $200,000 per year for water-quality programs.

With these new offerings in the mix, the City Council this week delayed the highly anticipated vote on the project’s conditional-use permit, a vote that essentially is the “yes or no” moment that both backers and opponents have long awaited. The vote now is scheduled for Nov. 21.

Despite the possibilities of these new goodies, the City Council still should vote no on the plan. As beneficial as emergency water and a small break in cost would be, these new gifts still do not address the central issue of this debate: the unfair, additional burden being placed on southeast Huntington Beach.

This part of town already suffers from a toxic waste dump, the AES power plant and a sewage facility. All have existed for years, so it is difficult to argue that the southeast part of town should be freed from these burdens. But it should be free of additional industry and all the problems that come along with it.

No amount of emergency water and no trimming of the cost of the city’s water supply will change that basic fact.