Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) — San Diego’s regional water authority
approved a contract to purchase all the output of a seawater
desalination plant with an estimated price tag of almost $1
billion that has yet to be built in nearby Carlsbad.
Formal backing from the San Diego County Water Authority
Board yesterday means construction may start within weeks
adjacent to the Encina power station on what would be the
Western Hemisphere’s largest plant to make potable water
filtered from the ocean.
Critics including environmentalists derided the board’s
backing of a 30-year contract with Poseidon Resources Corp.,
which plans to sell bonds to finance most of the construction
costs. The plant is designed to supply water using reverse
osmosis technology for about 7 percent of the region.
“Let the high billing begin,” Peter Gleick, co-founder of
Oakland, California-based Pacific Institute, said on Twitter.
Under terms of the contract, the agency will pay at least double
what it now costs to bring water to the area from Northern
California and the Colorado River.
The approval makes area water users less vulnerable to
drought and assures a source of scarce supplies, project backers
including San Diego’s mayor said. The San Diego agency says the
average household bill may rise $5 to $7 a month when the plant,
in development and debate since 1998, is operating.
Area surfers contend the plant will harm fish with the
extra salty brine it pumps back into the sea. Others said the
high electricity needs to desalinate the water isn’t worth the
cost. The plant will use about 5 percent of the yearly output of
the Encina station, according to Maxime Serrano Bardisa, a water
analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Randall Hackley in London at
rhackley@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Randall Hackley at
rhackley@bloomberg.net
