Environmental stewardship and water reliability ... for today and tomorrow.

The Huntington Beach Water Desalination Facility will turn seawater into safe, reliable drinking water. Salt and other impurities are removed until it meets or exceeds local, state, and national drinking water standards. Once in service, the facility will produce 50 million gallons of desalinated water per day.

Desalination technology is used in more than 21,000 locations worldwide, and as Huntington Beach’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR) states: This project is safe for the environment. Importantly, the facility will be built at no cost to taxpayers and, in accordance with the Huntington Beach General Plan, will be located in an existing industrial-zoned area near Pacific Coast Highway.

The Huntington Beach Water Desalination Facility has received the following permits:
  • Conditional Use and Coastal Development Permits—The Huntington Beach City Council approved these permits for Poseidon’s Huntington Beach Water Desalination Facility.
  • Discharge Permits—The California Regional Water Quality Control Board, Santa Ana Region, unanimously approved these necessary permits for the facility.
  • Drinking Water Permit—The California Department of Health Services has granted the project a conceptual drinking water approval. The drinking water permit is necessary to allow facility water to enter the potable water distribution system.

The City of Huntington Beach certified a Subsequent Environmental Impact Report (SEIR) to address the modification of the desalination project’s configuration to reflect the current proposed engineering, construction and operation.  The SEIR also addressed the potential environmental impacts of the project when, at a future date, the Huntington Beach Desalination Facility operates as a “stand-alone” facility and no longer uses the seawater discharge from the Huntington Beach Generating Station (i.e. the AES Power Plant).  The power plant will no longer use the “once-through-cooling” system due to new state regulatory requirements.

In addition to this City certification, Poseidon Resources is seeking a renewal of its State Lands Commission lease agreement, a renewal of its National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit with the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board and its Coastal Development Permit from the California Coastal Commission.

If the project receives all its required permits by 2020, it could be producing drinking water for Orange County by as soon as 2025.

200,000,000,000

Gallons of Drinking Water

The Huntington Beach Seawater Desalination Project first received its Environmental Impact Report certification in 2005.

Had the HB Desal plant been operational since then, Orange County would have received more than 200 billion gallons of high-quality, local drought-proof water. Your support is needed to finally get this project online and producing high-quality, drought proof drinking water. 579 gallons of drinking water will be produced every second. That’s more than 200 billion gallons of drinking water that could have been produced, but wasn’t due to regulatory red tape.
Say YES to desal

Desalination technology is used in more than 21,000 locations worldwide, and as Huntington Beach’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR) states: This project is safe for the environment.

"Our Urban Water Management Plan identifies seawater desalination as a critical component of its plan to diversify the County’s water supply and reduce demand on imported water."
~ Municipal Water District of Orange County