Times of San Diego
A proposed California desalination plant that would produce 50 million gallons of drinking water per day failed a crucial regulatory hurdle on Monday, possibly dooming a project that had been promoted as a partial solution for sustained drought.
The staff of the California Coastal Commission recommended denying approval of the Huntington Beach plant proposed by Poseidon Water, controlled by the infrastructure arm of Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management.
The commission’s staff said the project was more susceptible to sea-level rise than was understood when it was first proposed more than two decades ago. The plant is expected to produce 50 million gallons of drinking water per day, enough for 16% of the homes in the Orange County Water District, where 2.5 million people live.
