CNN’s Rachel Crane examines water before and after Poseidon’s magic.
Since being ordered by the Coastal Commission to conduct a serious, credible study on the “feasibility” of using more expensive but less destructive underground “infiltration galleries” in their proposed Huntington Beach desal plant [breathe here...] Connecticut-based corporation Poseidon Inc. has been on an unmistakable Propaganda Blitz. Latching onto the current drought (in this natural desert in which we dwell) to dishonestly pass themselves off as the inevitable solution, they’ve brought us in rapid succession a CNN Puff Piece on their Carlsbad project, a Jury-Rigged Grand Jury Report, and – coming up soon – an OCWD-funded “study” to be produced by the same folks who gave them the glowing thumbs up in Carlsbad.
In this article we’ll look at the CNN piece, a two-and-a-half-minute segment (from a larger gee-whiz special called “City of Tomorrow“) in which a wide-eyed young reportress marvels at Poseidon’s new Carlsbad facility (coming online 2016) and chats with a Poseidon flack and a supportive local water official. The company loves this segment – they immediately sent a copy to everyone whose e-mail they could find (thanks Inge) and spokesman Brian Lochrie has been bringing it to water board meetings and, rather than saying anything, just making everybody watch it.
Some telltale signs of lack of objectivity and critical thinking in the piece just leap out at the thinking layman – no plant critics are featured; a couple of environmental concerns are fleetingly mentioned and immediately brushed aside by the Poseidon flack. 
But I knew there were bound to be some errors, omissions and distortions that would sneak right past me, so I invited longtime Poseidon foe and former HB mayor Debbie Cook (left) over to HB’s swell Sweetelle Cafe to watch it with me.
Now, SOME Poseidon critics allow as to how desalination might be the way to go some time in the next couple decades, to add to our water “portfolio” – just not with this crooked and irresponsible Connecticut company, and particularly not the subsidized, polluting, obsolete plan it has for Surf City. But the harshly realistic Cook sees NO place for desal in a sane workable water future for southern California, for reasons I’ll let her explain later. Short version – forget the environment, there’s just no way desal can ever pencil out with the crippling and GROWING energy costs it requires, AND PLUS we don’t need it.
Here is the CNN piece, followed by our mordant commentary. You could watch the whole thing and then read on, or hit pause every few seconds like we did and hear the truth:
[Rachel Crane saunters up the coastline, hands in pockets: "With Southern California experiencing one of the worst droughts in the state's history, access to fresh water has never been more important, or more difficult. Here in Southern California, the largest desalination plant in the western hemisphere is being constructed..."]
“Wait. Hit pause. The Carlsbad plant is NOT the largest desal plant in the Western Hemisphere. That would be the Yuma Desalter, a 72,000 acre-foot built by California’s MWD (Metropolitan Water District) back in 1992 to desalinate water from the Colorado River. It operated at 1/3 capacity for six months until other less expensive solutions opened up (for treaty compliance with Mexico) but we’ve still spent millions on it since. I wrote about it in my Oil Drum piece, ‘Desalination: Unlocking Lesson’s from Yesterday’s Solution.‘”
Right here, you really should go read Debbie’s seminal and devastating 2011 article, it’s not too long, and it’s infuriating. Click this link, which opens a new window, and then come back. I’ll be waiting for you right here.
You’re back? I hope you did read Debbie’s article, you learned a lot if you did. For example, you learned how Australia was brought to its knees a few years ago by the unexpected staggering costs of the desal industry they had embraced during a drought. You learned how their water rates QUADRUPLED, how the number of poor Australians needing assistance with their water bills skyrocketed, how two of the six plants were shuttered [now it's four by the way], how the Labor government associated with desal was brought down, and how all was saved by the rains coming back, as they always do.
Anyways, CNN was wrong about “the largest desal plant in the western hemisphere” – a quibble perhaps but they are not off to a good start! Let’s get back to them:
["...It will soon take water from the ocean, and create fifty million gallons of fresh water a day!"
[Bob Yamada (SD water guy who has drunk the koolaid): "California's in a serious drought right now, and ANY new water supplies are important to the region."
[Peter McLaggan, from Poseidon: "We have a $190 million economy in this region, that's dependent on water..."]
“Wait, pause right here. Why are they showing pictures of strawberry fields? Strawberries are not going to be irrigated with desalinated water, most crops won’t be, there’ll be too much boron in the water, it damages many plants. (Boron may not be too good for human male fertility either, but we don’t have enough studies.) Anyway most California farmers don’t use expensive water, they use subsidized water.”
Burning excess, subsidized rice in California’s agricultural belt wastes a lot of our water and energy, but at least it helps keep down the peasants in Vietnam and Haiti, and makes beaucoup bucks for our Big Ag companies!
This is a good place to point out that the real root of California’s water shortage is our stupid agricultural policies – we export a HUGE percentage of our water in the form of HAY, to China and the Middle East. The energy and water costs of big alfalfa and rice farmers – two crops that were never meant to be grown in a natural desert like this which has always experienced cycles of drought and rainfall – are subsidized by us taxpayers in policies that make no sense now if they ever did, but are political cluster bombs to the touch. Meanwhile we city dwellers and suburbanites strive to conserve, which is well and good, but the real problem is our agricultural policy.
Okay, back to CNN -
[Poseidon's McLaggan: "...the question you need to consider is, what's the cost of NOT having enough water?"]
“NO, that is NOT the question we need to consider. The question is, Why do we WASTE so much water? And also, How much do we REALLY need?“ It wasn’t hard to look around at that moment and find an example of water waste – it was right outside the window of the cafe, the grassy divider running between the sidewalk along Warner and the shopping center – why did it need to be contoured the way it is, as a long mound? [see below] Even ignoring whether we really need a long green grassy divider there, its elevated shape causes all the water spent on it to flow right off instead of soaking in, AND that also helps degrade the concrete and asphalt. Multiply that by 10,000 or 100,000 throughout Orange County and you got some major waste:
Although we deplore Orange County’s water boards, the (redundant) MWDOC and OCWD, for being stacked with bought-off Poseidon shills, some of whom shouldn’t legally even be voting on the boards, these agencies have also done some very good things addressing waste. Our award-winning Groundwater Replenishment System is to boast of, and we are currently expanding that, but we could do even more. And meanwhile homeowners can get nice rebates for xeriscaping their yards with drought-tolerant vegetation, and the folks who do that sort of work are booked up for months! Good stuff.
On a basic level though, agencies like these are not rewarded for conserving water – rather, their budget is based on how much water they can SELL. Hence when their budget inevitably gets cut as for one reason or another customers DO conserve, the first item the agencies understandably cut is their conservation budget.
Meanwhile, you labor unions (Teamsters & Building Trades) who are fighting so hard and bare-knuckled for the mostly temporary jobs building Poseidon, you should look instead to getting MWDOC to go full bore with expanding the Groundwater Reclamation – DEFINITELY a lot of union jobs, for a project that will NOT be adding to your workers’ water bills, and will NOT be mucking up their ocean with thick carpets of brine! Think about it! Back to CNN…
[Yamada: "Unlike, let's say, water that comes from rainfall, or water that comes from snowpack, we're using what is essentially the world's largest reservoir, the Pacific Ocean." (Debbie groans at hearing the ocean called a reservoir.)
[Rachel: "The Carlsbad desalination plant will cost approximately one billion dollars. The fresh water will be pumped ten miles underground into a regional delivery system, providing water to an additional 300,000 San Diego County residents. (to Yamada) - So, customers, they won't know whether they're drinking desalinated water or not?"
[Yamada: "That's right. It'll just become part of the overall supply."]
“Pause that. Oh, they’ll know they’re drinking desalinated water all right. They won’t know by the taste. They’ll know in 2016, or soon after, when their water bills go through the roof.”
Here’s a good place to introduce my concept of single, double, or triple whammy. Our water rates will definitely be going up in the coming years, but we have a choice as to BY HOW MUCH? Which sounds best or worse?
- Single whammy – we inevitably conserve more, as we have been, so we buy less water, but the cost of maintaining our current infrastructure stays the same, so the cost of the water necessarily has to rise by a certain amount.
- Double whammy – we contract with an honest desal company (not Poseidon) and the water rates increase to meet the construction, upkeep, and creation of this much-more expensive water; meanwhile in a cyclical manner consumers conserve even more because the water’s so damn expensive, causing the prices to rise even higher!
- Triple whammy – We agree to Poseidon’s demands, known as “take or pay” agreements, where (in order to protect their profits) we agree to buy their expensive water even during rainy times when we don’t need it – and add THAT to the double whammy above!
I say – simple – let’s stick with the “single whammy.” Back to CNN, “the most relied-upon name in news…”
[Rachel: "Through a process called reverse osmosis, the plant will convert every two gallons of seawater into one gallon of fresh water, filtering out 99.9% of the salt. The salt, or brine, that's removed, is discharged back into the ocean."]
“That’s right, and no studies have been done yet about what all that brine will do covering the ocean floor. It’s heavy, you know, it’s gonna sink, and create a thick briny carpet which is bound to kill all or most of the bottom-dwellers in the area where it’s discharged. And over the years of operation that carpet will get wider and thicker, creating an ever-expanding dead zone.’
This isn’t a perfect cautionary tale, as one desal plant isn’t going to kill the whole Pacific ocean, BUT … desal-dependent middle-east nations have ruined their seas with increased salinity to such a degree that they are considering building mammoth pipelines now to NEW seas that they can ruin!
["...The desalination process traditionally takes a lot of energy. A plant this size would normally use as much energy in a single day as 70 homes in a year. Officials at the Carlsbad plant say theirs will use 46% LESS energy."]
Wait wait wait WHAT? Did most of that end up on the cutting-room floor? What the hell do these numbers mean, and what stinky place were they pulled from? It certainly doesn’t jibe with what we’ve seen in their EIR. What we DO know is the plant will use 34 Megawatts, which would power 25,500 homes all year; God knows what magical figure this supposed 46% is reduced DOWN from.
["...The project is not without criticism. Environmentalists point out that desalination requires a lot of energy, and that brine discharge can negatively affect marine life."
Poseidon's McLaggan: "We've created more marine wetlands in the south end of San Diego Bay to create new habitats so fish can reproduce there. With respect to the brine discharge, we dilute the brine with seawater before it leaves the site."]
“Oh, God. You can’t just destroy a thousands-of-years-old wetlands somewhere, and then re-create a new one somewhere else.” Basically some company like Poseidon can’t just re-create what it took God and/or nature thousands of years to develop; also, once you destroy a wetland, many of the countless species that needed it do not come back.
[Rachel: "The plant is expected to be completed in 2016." Yamada: "Everybody (really, everybody?) is extremely excited to see this project coming online and providing us with a new water supply."]
EVERYONE is excited about the Carlsbad plant, according to Bob Yamada.
And that’s it. I guess the message Poseidon spokesmen are trying to get across when they promote this clip as they do is that “See, if CNN, the most relied-upon name in news, can’t find anything bad to say about our Carlsbad plant, and is slack-jaw amazed by it, then how bad could it be? Let us do Huntington Beach now!”
But this suggests one final question: This segment was about their Carlsbad project. But, whatever may be good or bad about that one, how does it reflect on whether we should do the same in Huntington Beach? What differences are there? Good questions as cautious policy-makers from HB Councilman Dave Sullivan to new OCWD member Jan Flory are counseling “Let’s wait a couple years to see how Carlsbad goes.”
“The difference is, WE DON’T NEED IT HERE. Orange County doesn’t need this extra water. San Diego may think they do, that’s their business. We have much more affordable and sustainable solutions here in the OC. But…” And here Debbie remembers that she’s no longer a politician who needs to come across as a nice person: “Let them go ahead and build it. It’s gonna be a stranded asset, a white elephant. I’ve been fighting it for ten years, its price has gone from 170 million to a billion, and I’m getting tired of saying ‘I told you so.’”
“NO!!!!!”
Come back next week, when the same Dynamic Duo will take a critical look at the jury-rigged Grand Jury report Poseidon managed to pull off recently – where, sounding for all the world like 2012-model John McCain trolling for xenophobic Arizona votes, when he strolled along the Mexico border growling “Complete the dang fence!” – these half-informed folks growled “Build the dang plant!” How did this policy question even come under the Grand Jury’s purview? Did Poseidon make any provable effort to stack the jury with their supporters? Why did the Jury only talk to the boards who already support Poseidon? How many errors and omissions will Debbie be able to find in that report, and how many ill-tasting metaphors will Vern be able to conjure up to illustrate those points? Stay tuned…
[I know, I could tell you fascinating things about that phony sheriff, but we are officially off track now.]
Poseidon probably doesn’t relish the prospect of Carlsbad coming online and SD water customers having sticker shock before an agreement is signed in OC. Perfect case study in the making.
Want do you want to drink?
(1) Recycled toilet water
(2) Recycled sea water
The Colorado aqueduct and the California canal are going to turned off soon. So who are you going to call? (Mono lake has already been turned off)
If you’re still that squeamish, cook, after all these years of drinking reclaimed water, you must have a huge bottled water bill.
And even if Poseidon goes online, you’ll still be drinking a lot of “recycled toilet water” mixed with recycled seawater.
Next…
*San Onofre is perfect for a Desal Plant and you guys know it. What are you guys afraid of – getting too much salt on the surfers?
The unaffordability issue remains … but as long as it’s a different county’s problem, I suppose I don’t care.
*Where would your rather buy that water Chairman Vern? From Vlade
Putin perhaps?
Perhaps read the article, Winships.
Did anyone consider what they are implying with this?-
“With respect to the brine discharge, we dilute the brine with seawater before it leaves the site.”]
That’s like saying “drinking your urinal discharge is OK, because we use drinking water to flush it”
The old “smog pump” phony solution from Detroit- don’t worry what we’re dumping, “Our “solution”,to pollution, is DILUTION!”
How can people swallow this crap?
is that power plant sucking in fish? has it been for decades? let’s write about it too.
*Surf fishing went out in Huntington Beach (tin can beach – remember?) in the late 40′s and early 50′s. Pier fishing in HB has been awful for years. The Pier fishing in Newport Beach raises one occasional non edible halibut once or twice a year. The good news is that the seaweed is making a comeback. One thing we don’t know is how that brine might effect the seaweed growth.
You know what, deadwhitemale? Let’s decommission that bad old power plant. Oh. You know what? Already done.
Poseidon wants to make that permanent, and a lot of other harmful things.
And I know you know this. Talk about disingenuous.
is the power plant sucking in ocean water now? I don’t follow it that closely. I had heard it was still operating at a lower than capacity level and I have seen vapor from it that makes me think it is still operating. I know it sucked in ocean water for several decades since I lived right by it. speaking of that, is that polluted area inside the fence by Hamilton ever going to get cleaned up? why has HB not taken care of this in some manner in the last 30+ years? will Poseidon be forced to clean it up when they build their desal plant? is that really Debbie Cook in the picture you have in the column?
Some good questions. Last one – that first picture, which I used as a “featured image” as well, is the CNN reporter, as I make clear in a caption. She does look like a younger Debbie it’s true.
“The difference is, WE DON’T NEED IT HERE. Orange County doesn’t need this extra water.” Vern
We don’t need any more water, we don’t need any more freeways, we don’t need any more housing, we don’t need any more power, and we don’t need any more people.
What is with “the do nothing” attitude about the future?
YOU think we need more people in the world? And in this county? I don’t.
And I still don’t think you read the story, or not very seriously, or you wouldn’t talk about a “do nothing” attitude about the future.
are you for closing our borders and deportations of criminal illegal aliens then?
He said “county,” not “country.”
I presume that Vern would be fine with selective deportations — such as the entire population of Coto de Caza to Inyo County. The residences there would be more than adequate for the homeless community. Haven’t really asked him about it, though.
So, seriously: you think that if you’re anti-freeway clogging development, you have to be for open borders? Seriously seriously?
Define “criminal illegal aliens.” People living and working here without papers (or papers expired), or undocumented people who’ve committed actual crimes? Never mind answering, I know who you mean. Everyone from Mexico we can get rid of.
They’re not the top of my concern. For one thing their immigration has zeroed out, between Barack the Deporter and our bad economy. And I also don’t see them as responsible for filling too many swimming pools, artificial lakes, and watering golf courses (except for the actual physical work.)
Well, I must reply since you made very inaccurate statements by saying “everyone from Mexico we can get rid of” is my position. Far from it. I mean illegal aliens who have committed crimes, other than illegally crossing the border, including drunk driving, failure to pay income taxes, identity theft, and the rest of the laws on the books that would land you or me in front of a judge (and found guilty). And not just from Mexico. From any country. I love Mexicans, some of my best friends ……..
Well, you put it that way and you won’t get much disagreement, from “environmental zealots” or anyone else. What were we arguing about again?
It’s good for you that your mother did not think that way, if she did we would not have your interesting dialog.
Vern, the problem with saying that “we could do even more” regarding GWRS is that it is dependent on how much “effluent” (dirty water) can be pumped over from the Sanitation District. That will always be the limiting factor. Of course we could start a campaign to get people to flush more, or run their showers more, but then where would that water come from.
the low hanging “fruit” is gone. next step is desal. ten years too late but better late than never. with the newer technology for filters both at intake and to purify water it will be a world class facility. if we are worried about brine, how about making it a sea salt factory whose by product is clean water?
is see the real reason against this is mainly not wanting possibly more people, though open borders are ok. I say this because I have gone to their r4rd group meetings in the past and hear that right off the bat. now Vern says no more people.
Yes, at the very least wait a few years, and not go with this plan which is bad in so many ways. And no, the “real reason” is not opposition to further development, that’s one of many good reasons that you could choose from.
And of course cook and deadwhitemale rush to “straw man” exaggerations like “Vern says no more people.” Apparently you people think the earth can continue to support the exponential explosion of our population indefinitely. Don’t make me put up a graph.
People who read and think and care about humanity’s future are having two or one or zero kids. You people go ahead and be fruitful and multiply if you have to, we’ll help take care of them.
More to the point, do we want many more people in the OC? Two, three, many Ranchos Santa Margaritae in the undeveloped parts of our county? Only developers do. We can take care of the water needs of those of us already here without bowing to Poseidon.
So now we begin the discussion that really needs to take place, population control. “There’s just to much consumin’ goin’ on!”
While this IS the real crux of the issue, no one seems to want to discuss it.
The environmental zealots will only mutter it in the softest tones among themselves. They know population control is their ultimate goal but one that’s going to be a death knell to any fruitful discussions with the general public in the short term.
While the earth has finite resources, we need to use what we have smarter and get every little bit we can from what we do use, it’s not easy. That includes water as well as energy. Work smarter and harder, but at the same time we should be more inclined to take whatever steps are available to reliably keep the supply of needed goods and services flowing. That includes water and power.
That includes things like intelligent planning on desalinization as well as building pipelines that economically maximize our abilities to safely crack hydrocarbons and package natural gas.
The environmental zealots bark, that we must stop the use of mineral fuels but fail to recognize the poisons generated by rare earth minerals needed for “sustainable” energy production and the new “clean” economy aren’t much if any better right now. In some instances they’re far worse in the generation of toxins and the energy loaded on the front end of production.
It’s not an easy problem to solve by any stretch of the imagination and there are no simple answers. All the answers have some bad trade offs, but we must do something to insure that society has it’s basic needs met or it will crumble and that’s probably the worst trade off for most of us to think about.
It’s not out of question in some minds, especially in the minds of enviro-zealots world wide.
The Poseidon deal might not be such a bargain, but it also shouldn’t be the end to discussions about desalinization or our need for it here in the parched South West, we’ve chosen to call home.
You can call me an environmental zealot if you call my vasectomy “population control.” Many of us individuals have learned enough about what’s going on around us that we choose do to our little parts to slow down the crazy growth of our species, and try to take better care of what we do have. You’re out on a limb if you call that nanny-state liberalism or extremism or something.
You’re right to be skeptical of Poseidon, but the unaffordability extends to any desal that’s technically imaginable right now. I hope you read not only my piece but the important Cook piece that I linked to.
You might be an enviro-zealot Vern, but you do listen to at least some of what’s discussed in opposition. I don’t think your cutting your ties to being a parental unit as anything other than your free choice, as long as it’s not some mandated state demand.
The problem with any cost effective infrastructure builds is the time factor. It may not make economic sense right now BUT it might make a lot of sense IF we continue to have lower than average precipitation and we continue to mandate that everyone has green lawns in front of their homes. I also think the Poseidon deal isn’t a great one.
By the time there’s no potable water you never know what a bottle of water will go for or what would look like a bargain at that point.
Desal isn’t cheap or easy but it is proven to work and it will be the future of any arid high density population centers of the future.
I followed the link to D Cook’s opinion piece and then followed her link to the government report. (That she was a member)
The report you have linked to is not negative on desalination.
“7. Create an Office of Desalination within the Department of Water Resources to advance the State’s role in desalination.” (The same thing as recommend by the OCGJ)
If you read the report, you will find that it would be beneficial to the water supply and beneficial to the government in loads of administration costs taken off the top.
If the CNN City of Tomorrow series doesn’t raise some red flags on personal privacy and liberty issues in your mind, it sure should!
wow. jury tampering with the grand jury (what did their report say? please inform us) added to all the illegal , secret meetings by the corrupt electeds and private business? All over trying to get us some dam water? where are the Feds on this? it has to be a bigger picture-population increase perhaps?
Oh! You finally got to the last paragraph? Lets see what we come up with. It was a pretty weird thing for the Grand Jury to even look into.
I did make a wrong assumption, I thought it was one of the first acts of the new Grand Jury, but I guess it’s the same old one that has been doing a lot of good stuff against corruption. So it’s probably crazy to think Poseidon stacked the jury with their supporters a year ago. The other questions are good though.
Thank you Vern for your insightful critique of the CNN piece on the Carlsbad plant. I am also grateful for your including the link to Debbie’s 2011 Oil Drum article. It is more than relevant to the desal issue. I was particularly taken with her discussion about the decoupling of infrastructure cost from the commodity cost as a solution to the problem of conservation driving up the commodity cost in a “have-to-keep-sales-up” model. Kudos for bringing so much light to this challenging issue.
Hi, Jan! Did you know that I’m doing Brown Act litigation these days? You have my phone number!