San Diego UNION-TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

Obstructionists must step aside / Desalinated seawater is critical to the region’s future

By Union-Tribune Editorial Board,
Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.

Will the obstructionism never end?

When the California Coastal Commission meets next week in Oceanside, opponents of a planned desalination plant in Carlsbad will fire another volley in their seemingly interminable guerrilla war against a facility that could be converting seawater into 50 million gallons a day of potable water by 2012. That’s enough to serve the needs of more than 100,000 typical households.

Maddeningly, this challenge comes only three months after the commission seemingly brought cloture to an 11-year process by granting Poseidon Resources the final permit needed to begin construction.

But the same old opponents – the Surfrider Foundation, San Diego Coastkeeper and the Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation – continue to grasp at any thread that might unravel the project. They seek to have the permit revoked on the grounds that Poseidon withheld information on one aspect of the labyrinthine application, a contention Poseidon hotly denies.

The Coastal Commission’s staff has concluded that Poseidon did misrepresent or withhold some information, but says that none of it was significant enough to have affected the original permitting. It recommends that the commission reject the obstructionists’ latest tactic. Good.

At the risk of repeating ourselves, this semiarid region, battling yet another drought, needs abundant water for its growing population and high-tech industrial base. Perched on the edge of the vast Pacific Ocean, the region is a hub of desal technology development. It is not only logical, but imperative that desalination move forward and that the obstructionists step aside.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010 ... tep-aside/