Environment

Another Legal Challenge Over Carlsbad Desalination Plant

By Ed Joyce / Reporter

Published April 23, 2010 at 11:22 AM PDT

This story was published more than 14 years ago.

The Surfrider Foundation filed a lawsuit Thursday against the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board.

The suit challenges a permit that allows Poseidon Resources to withdraw 300 million gallons of seawater per day for the company's desalination plant in Carlsbad.

The complaint alleges that the plant must strictly comply with the California Water Code to minimize the intake and mortality of marine life.

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Joe Geever with Surfrider said that as proposed, the desalination facility would kill countless marine organisms. He said a plan to replace these fish and other marine life through a restoration project somewhere else is not legal.

Geever said at issue is the use of the cooling water intake system used at the Encina Power Station in Carlsbad. The desalination plant would use that system.

The "once-through cooling" systems are being phased-out as new technology is more effective and kills fewer marine organisms.

California's State Water Resources Control Board is working on a new statewide policy on cooling intakes.

Scott Maloni with Poseidon Resources said this lawsuit is the 13th legal challenge (six permit appeals and seven lawsuits) involving the desalination project. He said 10 of those challenges have been rejected.

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"This latest lawsuit is irrelevant to the financing and construction of the project," Maloni told KPBS News.

When completed in a few years, the desalination plant is expected to produce more than 50 million gallons of drinking water a day.

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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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