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“We could build a desal plant faster, better, and cheaper than Poseidon.” – Director Phil Anthony.
Ten people, ten men and women, elected either onto the OC Water District Board or onto some city council and APPOINTED onto that board, are going to decide very soon whether or not to saddle this county with Poseidon’s very expensive water for 50 years while wreaking havoc on the coast of Huntington Beach. These men and women have names and faces, we should get to know them. We should try to get some of them on record, as to what might influence them to make this gigantic commitment for us or not. So I guess my work is cut out for me.
The first guy I sat down with, at Huntington Beach’s swell Sweet Elle Cafe, is the very genial and avuncular Director Phil Anthony. The guy MUST be older than he looks – he’s in his SIXTH DECADE of public service in the OC, having first been elected to Westminster City Council in 1962, serving there for 15 years before getting a term as an OC Supervisor, and now the Water District representative for Huntington Harbor, Seal Beach, Westminster, Los Alamitos and Rossmoor … since 19-freaking-81. How many times does that mean he was elected by his loyal (or apathetic) constituents? He’s not sure – I count nine four-year terms.
You gotta ask a guy like that, what have been the high points in your 34 years on the water board? What are you most proud of? And it’s not a surprise that he first brings up our celebrated Groundwater Replenishment System. He tells us that the first expansion of the GWRS is physically done now and should be operational by next month, providing us with 100 million gallons a day of inexpensive, pure, recycled water. Then he reaches back in his memory to 1976 and tells of OCWD’s smaller “Water Factory 21,” a similar but more primitive plant they built in reaction to a drought back in the days of disco and quaaludes. [Begun before but finished during his tenure.]
On the dais, in regards to Poseidon, Phil has been rather cryptic and noncommital, unlike Director Jan Flory who hit the Board last year like a bull in a china shop with such unheard-of heretical comments as “If we are taking on all the risk, then what do we need Poseidon for?” When Jan does get a second, whether on transparency or exploring alternatives to Poseidon, it generally comes from Phil – but then when the votes come, all the little baby steps toward making this project inevitable, Phil votes right along with the rest, despite the occasional wry zinger like last month’s “So, the cost of Poseidon’s water … that’s just one of those minor issues we’ll figure out later?”
Listening to all the problems he sees with the draft term sheet, it’s hard to picture him voting to move forward on it. But he doesn’t want to say right now that he’s going to vote no: “I am trying to keep an open mind; I feel they deserve to be heard.” I tell him he should be more vocal on the dais about his criticisms and reservations. “There are new people on the Board who seem overwhelmed by all the new information [Reyna, Nguyen] and they need to hear all your criticisms and know that Flory’s not just some cranky outlier.”
Phil sees the Poseidon water as being unnecessarily expensive, and also finds it nonsensical and manipulative for Poseidon’s project to be marketed as a solution to our current drought. “Even if they got all the green lights they want, they wouldn’t be online for nearly five years. By then this drought will either be long over, or we’ll all be dead … or moved to somewhere with water.”
“Building a desal plant is really not what the OCWD is supposed to be about, we are supposed to be about taking care of the Santa Ana Aquifer. But still, we could do it. With our triple A credit, we could finance a desalination plant much cheaper than Poseidon could, and we would use the best and latest technology. You’ve seen our Groundwater Replenishment System, Vern. We could do a desal plant better, faster and cheaper than Poseidon.” That’s the kind of talk I’d like to hear more of on the dais, at meetings.
So, that’s Phil. Punxsutawney Phil. We’ll be chatting with more Board members as the vote nears. Is it possible, despite all the air of inevitability, despite all Poseidon’s twelve years of tireless lobbying and political contributions, that five of these men and women will listen to logic and their constituents and just say no? We shall see soon!
OK I admit to coming way late to the discussion, and I am sure you discussed this and I missed it so just skip the “wake up where ya been?” Uh…where is the environmental work on this thing?
Last time they were at Coastal Commission, they were told to “study” using subsurface intakes which won’t slaughter so many fish larvae. They withdrew their application, and supposedly have been studying subsurface intakes. They’ll be going before the Coastal Commission again (I forget when, anybody?) and are expected to whine that these intakes will be “infeasible” – i.e., eat into their profits too deeply.
Even though I’ve heard that OVER THE COURSE OF A DECADE OR TWO those better intakes would save them money and function better – showing that their real overriding concern is SHORT TERM PROFITS – how very 20th century of them. And the only business of the Coastal Commission should be to protect our coast, not to make sure Poseidon makes a profit… but Jerry Brown has been stacking that commission with labor slaves who are overridingly concerned with the “jobs jobs jobs” provided by projects like Poseidon.
I wrote a good report from that Nov. 2013 hearing that you might enjoy: http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2013/11/poseidon-runs-headlong-into-infiltration-gallery/
OCWD may be able to build it cheaper but I doubt faster or better. cheaper because of the AAA credit rating. faster? doubtful. they would have years of permitting to go through. Poseidon has already spent 15 years and only need one more permit. Better? they would probably hire the same people Poseidon will. except Poseidon has a financial interest in building the best and most efficient product due to the fact that the better built (for mininimal O&M) and efficient the plant is, the more profits for them. it is an old theory from long ago America, the profit motive to get things done. now disparaged, it once made America great.
The “profit motive” here comes from shackling the taxpayers to their own performance, and ultimately maybe, we get stuck holding the bag.
That’s what made America great – for some people.
if Poseidon does not produce water then we don’t pay for any. we are not left holding the bag for the plant. for the pipes outside the fence, yes, but then ocwd could build a plant and utilize them. market rates? this is the market rate for desal. cheaper than what some cities are paying right now for additional water. subsurface intakes at hb don’t seem to be ideal. too much disturbance of the ocean floor and the thousands of living things in it. great concept though. just need the right topography. the coastal commission will vet the concepts and come up with the best one.
Nobody doubts that they will produce water. Very very expensive water. Are we gonna need it? No so much.
This is not, absolutely not, the market rate for desal. Seriously, chuck the idea straight out the window.
If we float a bond for Poseidon and it doesn’t produce water . . . Guess who gets to pay.
There isn’t one single aspect of this deal that isn’t insane or stupid.
Building pipes that might be used for ANOTHER plant? Oh, my now that’s desperate talk.
“Holding the bag” is a metaphor, see, a kind of figure of speech – we will be in thrall to Posedon to HAVE to buy their water at their price. For decades. And whenever MWD commodity costs go up (like always) so does Poseidon’s price, regardless of any actual costs?
Anaheim David Zenger, that is not how I read your original post about holding the bag. you said shackling the taxpayers to their own performance. I am just pointing out that if they don’t perform we are not on the hook to pay for water if it is not produced. thus, taxpayers not holding the bag.
So how is Poseidon going to finance this?
Part of that lovely little story on capitalism you just shared is selling a product at market rates.
This project has absolutely nothing to do with market rates.
Ergo, it has nothing to do with capitalism.
Since when, in recent history, has profit motive been the motivator for efficient, reliable, and best built products in America? Once built, Poseidon will sell to the highest bidder and hot foot it out of Dodge before obsolescence, planned or otherwise, sets in and our 50 year deal becomes the most expensive, and longest contractual agreement in recent history.
By the way, a nice statement from our new HB Councilman Erik Peterson, an honest tea-partier who told me before the election that he supported Poseidon from what he’d heard, but I could tell he hadn’t heard enough and told him he’d probably change his mind when he learned more, which he has:
“I have always said that i don’t have a problem with desal nor do i have a problem with a private company producing a product that can be sold competetively on the open market. What i do have a problem with is government agencies subsidizing private companies to make a product pan out. In the case of Poseidon and their finanacial Term Sheet, I feel it is a bad deal for the city and the ratepayers. It ties rates to MWD rates that can be manipulated by the price of desal, it removes the almost $500,000 per year that the city was suppose to receive, and we are subsidizing the project thought the back door: the OCWD will have to bond to build the pipeline that is needed and we are all going to have to pay for that in our bill.”
This is good – Poseidon MAY have to come back to the HB Council for approval again if the Coastal Commission makes them change their project, and Poseidon HAD thought they had bought themselves a 4-3 friendly council last November (which had been 5-2 unfriendly last year.) But Peterson’s defection changes that. (Assuming the weak-kneed Katapodis sticks to his guns.)
I can’t wait to hear about your next water board (no pun intended) member. Poseidon is bent on buying these votes. When the bills come due and the GREAT SALT BEACH burns the skin of the next generation we’ll have documentation of who made it all happen.
Keep up the good work, Vern. This is great, thank you…
*”Nero fiddles….while Rome burns..” comes to mind. You guys all want Peer Swan to be trusted enough to keep the IRWD prices low……don’t you? You guys are wearing those wonderful bi-focals again. All water in the State of California is connected. Just because you have a well in your back yard doesn’t guarantee that Bill Jones will stop planting strawberries so you can have a full well. Look at it this way: Supply and demand. (1) So do we or don’t we have a water shortage? Ask the folks in Montana…they will tell you. (2) IRWD, OCWD and LAWD all get their water from someplace….and it is not your lovely GWRS. Hey, just drink straight out of the toilet….why bother reverse osmosis? (3) If the price of an acre foot triples in five years will that prove that you were short sighted enough to by-pass Desal? (4) If you folks are all true Environmental Warriors – figure out what to do with excess salt…like send it to Africa….where they need it. Figure out technology to keep the local water temperature low enough not to affect the sea weed and other flora and fauna. (5) Just because Desal doesn’t belong to you and you are not going to make a bundle on the production of more water……buy stock….like everyone else will do….when the day comes and your tap gives you nothing but air and belching sounds and your toilet won’t flush.
What?
Finally someone speaks out about the great African salt crisis.
Sooooo….
The World Bank needs to build desal plant along the coasts of Africa – for the salt!
*They already have them…….just not enough.
Africa’s largest desalination plant opens
http://www.desalination.biz/news/news_story.asp?id=7802
Nov 13, 2014 – Africa’s largest desalination plant opens. Singapore-based desalination company, Hyflux, has officially opened its recently completed 500,000
Mossel Bay, Western Cape – Seawater Desalination – Veolia ..
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http://www.veoliawaterst.co.za/…/Mossel_Bay_Seawater_Desalination_Case_St...
This turnkey desalination plant supplies 10 megalitres of potable water to the … treatment plant is the largest seawater desalination plant in South Africa to date.
*There are alot more…..but then this is just a 3rd World Continent which you can dismiss with impunity….right?
*MTBE too….in your wonderful GWRS wells…
http://www.laketahoenews.net/2014/08/tahoe-toms-at-center-of-mtbe-issue-again/
Phil Anthony has passed away
Fuck. I was worried when he didn’t show up to the last OCWD meeting.
He sure was in OC government a long time. I’ll have to do an obituary. Thanks for the heads up.
I guess that’ll be one more seat up for re-election on the water board this November. And he was reliably anti-Poseidon.
I think that it is probably too late for that, though I don’t know who (if anyone) would appoint a temporary or permanent replacement. We’d best find out.