Regional Water Board cancels December hearing on Poseidon plant

The Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board announced its Dec. 7 meeting agenda would not include an entry on the Poseidon Huntington Beach Desalination Project. Board members had tentatively considered deliberating the matter at their final meeting of 2018.

No information was immediately available as to why the Poseidon project won’t be on the Dec. 7 agenda.

Poseidon Water hopes to build a large-scale desalination plant on the Huntington Beach coast. The project’s proposed budget stands at $1 billion.

Plans to build a saltwater-to-freshwater conversion plant in Huntington Beach has been controversial, to say the least, as pro- and anti-desalination interests vocally expressed support and opposition to Poseidon’s project. The back-and-forth has been going on since at least 2012.

The Regional Water Board, meanwhile, spent the past few weeks exchanging correspondence with Poseidon. Members of the Water Board will be reviewing Poseidon’s updated desalination plant application, which could be the reason why an official – and public – consideration of the project was pushed to a future meeting.

The Regional Water Board will re-schedule the Poseidon agenda item; it could likely appear in front of the board in early 2019.