Letters/Online Comments

RE: “Sunroad hotel development on Harbor Island appears to be progressing” (Oct. 18-31)

Sure would be nice to see a good size public dock in the plan. San Diego Bay is sorely lacking public dock facilities, and this project offers an opportunity to offer boaters access to Harbor Island, which currently has no public docks.

Len Pitzalis

RE: “Small Craft Harbor Commission recommends lease assignment for Avalon Marina Bay” (Oct. 4-17)

Remember when a willing buyer and a willing seller could come to an agreement to transfer a property, without a bunch of bureaucrats puffing out their chests? Good times…

Robert Easterday

What about the fuel dock?

Mark Mason

 

RE: “Desalination: Poseidon still trying to plant its trident into Huntington Beach” (Oct. 4-17)

We may not be in a drought now but anyone who has lived in this state for 65 years as I have, knows another drought is predictable. Don’t be short sighted.

Dale Williams

Poseidon is yesterday’s tech and not terribly effective. Carlsbad still doesn’t produce 50mgd and quality issues persist. Originally, Poseidon gave a cost of $1,100 per acre-foot and finally signed at $2,400. Most recent cost was $2,700. There is lots of hot tech underway to build generation two desalination. Scrap Brookfield’s Poseidon in HB now and take new bidders if the area needs it in three years. OCWD’s GRWS meets local needs for seven to 10 years.

Glenn Brooks

Yes, drought inevitable. Yes, Poseidon is attempting to take advantage of the discounted power from AES as we were duped into exempting them from natural gas taxes during the Enron debacle. Every other entity in HB pays the tax. Imagine how much revenue the city loses now and how much it will sacrifice as power for this energy intensive process is fed to Poseidon without benefit (in water or tax revenue) to the municipality most impacted by infrastructure.
That incredible scenario is exemplary of the private-public partnerships where public always seems to be outmaneuvered by appropriately profit seeking capitalists. No desire here to staunch capitalists – just concern that taxpayers always get the bill. That’s not hard earned profit– its arbitrage – leveraging taxpayers for risk free returns.

Ok, set those dynamics aside. Given the risk free nature of the project (Poseidon can, after all, simply go bankrupt if we refuse to rescue it from purchasing agreements that do not yield profitability) and the demands of a growing population that guarantees our water districts will maintain the output (reclamation could do the same thing but that’s a whole other issue) why would the additional expense and far lesser environmental impacts of a subsurface system like that proposed for South County desalination project be a non-starter for Poseidon? See points above and sense a much shorter-term perspective on this public-private “partnership” from the private side. I’m just an avid news reader with a memory. It was only 10 years ago that Moorlach and others put the kibosh on the contrived sale of toll roads on public lands from private investors to a non-profit entity– presumably because profits were not coming fast enough for the private investors. Will Moorlach and his kind be around to shut down similar maneuvers in the future? It will likely be necessary. A technologically feasible sub-sand surface water sourcing system will at least protect local HB beaches while the finance battles rage on. Oh, yeah, what to do with the output from desalination? Reclamation has that solved with current waste stream output. Reclamation is – by demand and billing – scalable, in place, environmentally proven and completely publicly owned, operated and financed with zero risk that taxpayers will get duped by impatient but God-bless-America-we-definitively-need-’em profit oriented capitalists. Let’s just recognize they need to play in separate sandboxes…or beaches!

Mc

 

RE: “Queen City, Catalina Island: The City That Never Was” (Oct. 4-17)

I just made my first visit there and moored for a month. I really enjoyed what they HAVEN’T done with the place. Astounding natural beauty that thankfully has been mostly preserved.

Matt Daniel