Commentary: One option omitted: no desalination plant at all

While Anthony Clark Carpio’s article (“How would desalinated water be distributed? Water district decides to look at 5 of 8 options,” Feb. 5) refers to the proposed Poseidon Water project as “highly contested,” it did not deal with the sanest and most cost-effective option of all — don’t build it.

Like shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic, the approach by the Orange County Water District board majority members largely ignored all of the telling opposition points to constructing this $1 billion boondoggle, which would force district ratepayers to not only buy Poseidon’s ultra-expensive desalinated water but to spend many more millions of dollars to transport and store it.

Any of the options discussed by the board would not only cause damage to the coastal environment and be prohibitively expensive, but they would cause significant harm to local infrastructure and the community. It is one thing to force local residents to buy water that they don’t need. It is another to rip up their streets, cause many months of misery and inconvenience, and endanger our present water systems simply to turn a profit for Poseidon.

The Orange County Water District board refuses to wait for meaningful results from the Carlsbad desalination facility to guide decisions for the Huntington Beach project. This is simply to please Poseidon and not in response to some dire emergency that threatens us directly. The people don’t count, the experts don’t count and the facts to date don’t count.

Not constructing the desalination facility and its water transmission system is an option that has tremendous support from the community, especially southeast Huntington Beach. It would mean not distributing desalinated water at all.

TIM GEDDES is a Huntington Beach resident.