Environment

Environmental Groups Challenge Desalination Plant Approval

By Ed Joyce / Reporter

Published November 4, 2009 at 9:00 AM PST

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

The California Coastal Commission has approved the final permit for a proposed desalination plant in Carlsbad. But San Diego Coastkeeper says it will continue challenging the project.

Poseidon Resources says it will prepare the site for construction next week at the Encina Power Station.

San Diego Coastkeeper has asked the state Coastal Commission to revoke the construction permit.

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Gabe Solmer with Coastkeeper says the commission should take another look at some of the facts provided by Poseidon Resources during the hearing process.

"The staff will make a recommendation to the full commission but it will be up to the commission members themselves to decide whether the request has merit," Solmer says.

She says a hearing on the request is expected in December.

Meantime, Poseidon says it needs $530 million to finance construction by the end of this year.

Poseidon says the plant would produce 50 million gallons of drinking water a day upon completion sometime in 2012.

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The facility would be the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere.

Environmental Groups Challenge Desalination Plant Approval

The California Coastal Commission has approved the final permit for a proposed desalination plant in Carlsbad. But San Diego Coastkeeper says it will continue challenging the project.

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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