Poseidon review continues

Jenny Marder

The Planning Commission came within spitting distance of denying the

proposed seawater desalination plant Tuesday night, but instead voted

to continue trudging through it’s remaining permits.

In the last three months, the Planning Commission has held more

than seven meetings, acquired two new commissioners and approved the

environmental report twice. Two more documents remain before the

plant can pass through the commission.

As discussions on the Poseidon Corp.’s desalination plant opened,

Planning Commissioner Ron Davis announced that he planned to deny the

project and made a motion to put the decision to vote, to avoid

wasting time on a project potentially destined to fail, he said.

The plant, which would pull from the AES Huntington Beach power

plant’s daily intake of seawater and treat it to produce 50 million

gallons a day of fresh drinking water, is not in the best health,

safety and welfare interest of the citizens of Huntington Beach,

Davis said.

“It seems to me that we’re going through a bunch of conditions

when we don’t know whether there are four votes for or against this

project,” Davis said. “I don’t know what everybody else’s sense of

this project is.... I make a motion to disapprove the conditional use

permit. Then we can have a determination on whether we have to spend

more time on this.”

Despite a likely majority against the plant, including

Commissioner Robert Dingwall who has publicly opposed the project and

two others who voted against the environmental report, the motion to

deny the plant outright failed 4-3.

“I’m not for or against the project,” said Tom Livengood, who

replaced Don Stanton on the commission as of Tuesday. “What I’m for

is going through the conditions.”

The commission spent the rest of the evening going through the

terms of the conditional use permit, altering language and discussing

several issues including architecture, aesthetics, landscaping and

the project’s potential impact on neighboring wetlands.

A vote on the conditional use permit has been postponed to the

next meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m., Sept. 23.