Environmental groups are stepping up efforts to block the West Basin Municipal Water District from building the first full-scale desalination plant in Los Angeles, claiming the damaging effects on the coastline far outweigh the benefits of turning the ocean into a source of drinking water.
West Basin, a Carson-based agency that supplies much of the South Bay’s water, has spent more than a decade and tens of millions of dollars exploring building the plant on the beach in El Segundo — part of a long-term plan to make the region less dependent on imported water.
A draft EIR for the $380 million facility is taking longer than expected to completed and won’t be released until the end of the year, according to officials. Activists are using the delay to build public opposition to the project, especially since two veteran members of the panel that will vote on it — Carol Kwan and Don Dear — are up for re-election in November.
The desalination plant would need approval from regulatory agencies, including the California Coastal Commission, before operation could begin in 2023.
It could produce 20 million gallons of drinkable water to West Basin’s service area every day, and has the capacity to produce 40 million additional gallons that could be sold to other agencies.
At the heart of the debate: though West Basin says the plant will be the most environmentally friendly in the world and will only enhance efforts to increase recycling, opponents view desalination as an energy intensive last resort, and believe the agency is betting on the plant to be an independent money-maker to make up for revenue lost to conservation.
On Thursday, a panel of critics from Los Angeles Waterkeeper, the Surfrider Foundation and Heal the Bay outlined their positions before a room of about 70 people in the Joslyn Community Center in Manhattan Beach, one of two South Bay cities that have formally opposed the plant.
West Basin was not invited to participate, though a monitor sat in the crowd.
Will sea life be harmed?
Joe Geever, former water programs manager for the Surfrider Foundation, said too little is known about marine life and habitat to assume they won’t be harmed.
Brine — the twice-as-salty half of processed water that is discharged back into the ocean — is damaging even if it released offshore, he said.
“It’s toxic for marine life and, because it’s so much denser, it has a tendency to sink to the seafloor,” Geever said. “It can accumulate, because there’s not much movement, to where habitat is just destroyed.”
Agency defends desal
Rich Nagel, West Basin’s general manager, said Friday that state-of-the-art diffusers would be used to discharge the brine, and that they meet stringent environmental regulations adopted by the State Water Resources Control Board.
“Rather than putting a garden hose out to the ocean, we’re going to attach a spray nozzle,” Nagel said.
Extensive testing found that the effect is well under harmful levels for purple sea urchin, a species that is highly sensitive to salt.
Geever said screens designed to prevent fish and other sea life from getting sucked into intake pipes are only “marginally” better than leaving them open when it comes to preventing mortality.
But West Basin says the plant would be the first in the world to use wedge-wire screens that are thinner than a credit card.
“Any fish that would swim by, juvenile or adult, would never be impinged,” Nagel said. “We know that for certain.”
Is plant a ‘done deal’?
Bruce Reznik, executive director of Los Angeles Waterkeeper, said the desalination plant appears to be a “done deal” for West Basin.
He doubts the board of elected directors would decide against something the agency has spent so many years and so much money researching, and said he wishes the time and resources would go to storm water capture or indirect potable reuse.
“People do desal so they don’t have to do other things they think are harder,” said Reznik, who previously headed the San Diego Coastkeeper, which unsuccessfully sued to block a desalination plant from being built in Carlsbad.
“By spending this money, you’re diverting it from other things you could be spending,” he said.
West Basin officials have stressed that a decision has not been made, but critics say everything about the outreach process says otherwise, from the agency asking cities to conditionally support the plant, to producing pins that read “I (heart) Responsible Desal.”
But contrary to popular belief, Nagel said, the board has “absolutely not decided.”
West Basin plans to double its water recycling program regardless of whether the desalination plant is approved, he said, stressing that unlike desalinated water, recycled water has not been approved for drinking.
Nagel denied that West Basin has excluded environmental groups from participating in presentations and said the agency is open to participating in a public forum with them.
After a question-and-answer session Thursday, the speakers encouraged residents to stay informed and put up a fight.
“I just don’t understand why anybody is looking at desal as a solution when we know the impacts of climate change and they’re being brought up everywhere,” Reznik said.
