California American Water has sued the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District challenging the environmental review of the district’s potential public takeover bid of the company’s local water system.
Removal of the 90-year-old Rindge Dam from Malibu Canyon—a long-anticipated, multi-million-dollar project—moved a crucial step closer to reality on Friday, Nov. 13, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) announced the project’s report was signed and sent to congress for funding.
California American Water has re-filed its desalination project permit application less than two months after withdrawing it on the eve of a special Coastal Commission meeting, While the company made changes to its desal project proposal in the re-filed application, it has not yet met with Marina city officials to resolve the issues prompting the city to oppose the project.
The California Coastal Commission, on Nov. 6, will be considering a permit application to replace a stretch of shallow contaminated sediment at Los Cerritos Wetlands with clean sediment. Los Cerritos Wetlands, LLC, filed the remediation request with the Coastal Commission.
About 0.47 acres of the Synergy Oil Field at Los Cerritos Wetlands – which is relatively close to Alamitos Bay Marina and Naples Island in Long Beach – has, according to Coastal Commission staff, been used “as a disposal site for oil field-related wastes.”
Amid mounting controversy and concerns over environmental justice, California American Water on Wednesday withdrew its application for a desalination project in the small Monterey Bay town of Marina.
The proposal had become one of the most fraught issues to come before the California Coastal Commission, which was set to vote Thursday. The decision would have been the first major test of the commission’s new power to review not only harm to the environment when making decisions but also harm to underrepresented communities.
On a barren stretch of Monterey Bay, in a region desperate for fresh water, an oft-overlooked town has little say in whether a big water company can build a desalination operation right on its shore.
Here in Marina, where one-third of the town is low income and many speak little English, industrial facilities have long burdened the landscape. This desalination project would replace a century-old sand mine that has stripped shorebirds and rare butterflies of their home — and the community of an open space where anybody could cool off during a heat wave or enjoy a day by the sea.
Not a drop of this treated water — which would be piped to other cities, businesses and farmers in need — would even be for Marina.
Nine months after the Coastal Commission conducted its first hearing on California American Water’s proposed desalination project, commission staff has again recommended denial of the project in favor of a Pure Water Monterey expansion proposal.
On Tuesday, commission staff released a 154-page staff report essentially reiterating its previous arguments against the Cal Am desal project, including its relative cost, environmental impact and controversial nature. It touted the “feasible and environmentally preferable” recycled water project as a viable alternative in the Monterey Peninsula’s long-running attempts to develop a replacement water supply to offset the state ordered Carmel River cutback order.
After years of bureaucratic hurdles and increasing regulatory requirements, Poseidon Water was dealt yet another delay Friday, Aug. 7, in its pursuit of a controversial desalination plant in Huntington Beach. The Regional Water Quality Control Board concluded three days of hearings on the project’s next permit by telling Poseidon it must return with a more robust, more detailed mitigation plan to offset the environmental damage the project will cause.
Amidst public protests and outstanding questions from regional water officials — about what kind of deal they’re getting into on a controversial desalination plant for Huntington Beach — a final decision on the project has been pushed to next week, Aug. 7.
The Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board on Friday held a second day of public hearings before board members vote on the project proposal’s wastewater discharge permit.
If the permit is approved, Poseidon Water, the company proposing the desal plant, would clear a major hurdle after two-decades of pushing it near the final stretch to getting it completely authorized for construction.
The last step for the company would be to get another permit approved by the state Coastal Commission.
The 20-year battle between seawater desalters and Orange County environmentalists and community activists neared a turning point Thursday, the first in a series of final public hearings around a Huntington Beach desalination plant proposal before local regulators.
Hearings and public comments at the state regional water board started Thursday, are continuing today, and could continue to Aug. 7, if needed, with a vote on the required permits for the $1 billion water desalting project planned at the end of the hearings.
Proposed by the Poseidon Water company, the project has become one of the largest battles over Orange County’s coastline in decades.
