The Coastal Commission hearing on Poseidon Water's proposed Hunting-ton Beach Desalination Plant, which is taking place exactly as this issue of GWI is being published and printed, will be a watershed moment which will affect the future of large-scale seawater desalination in California. At stake is whether the plant will receive a Coastal Development Permit, the final hurdle in a development process that has taken 24 years at a cost of nearly $100 million. The decision to pursue a large-scale desalination project is never something to be taken lightly. Such projects are usually the largest and most complex infrastructure project that a community can undertake. Not only are the plants themselves expensive, so is the water that is produced, often costing three times or more than traditional supplies. Those unfamiliar with California's development process may assume that over-zealous environmentalists worried about impingement, entrainment or 'toxic' brine are to blame for the protracted permitting process. Although all of those issues are certainly real, and have to be addressed, the real reason for the permitting morass seems to be rooted in coastal development, and the most proactive opponent to coastal development is the California Coastal Commission.
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