Would you pay $89 more a year for a desalination plant? Water district gets answers

Are Orange County residents willing to support an $89 annual property tax increase to help pay for building a desalination plant in Huntington Beach?

The answer, according to a recent Mesa Water District-sponsored survey, is yes.

Mesa Water directors promise to reveal at their meeting Thursday the full results of the estimated $55,000 survey, which they approved in April.

SCI Consulting Group’s 11-question survey asked for ratepayers’ opinions on the Orange County Water District’s proposed desalination plant, to be built by Poseidon Water, in Huntington Beach.

About 6,000 ratepayers received it. Of those, 15% responded.

The survey began with a series of statements that tout the benefits of the desalination plant, including claims that it would generate “thousands of jobs and infuse $500 million in the community” and provide “much-needed drinking water in an environmentally sensitive way.”

Respondents then indicated how likely they were to support a new property tax to help build the plant: from “much more likely” to “much less likely.”

An accompanying sheet said Poseidon’s desalination process is safe, does not have “significant impacts” on ocean water quality and is net-carbon-neutral. And, it added, the project would provide thousands of short- and long-term jobs. It also stressed Orange County’s need for the plant amid recurring droughts and “extreme climate conditions stressing the region’s water supply.”

According to Poseidon, the estimated $1-billion plant would put 50 million gallons of water daily — about 8% percent of the county’s water needs — into the Orange County groundwater basin, which supplies Mesa Water and other agencies.

Critics have long contested many of Mesa Water’s assertions, arguing that the desalination process is far too expensive, not energy efficient and detrimental to the marine environment.

Though the cost of water from the proposed Poseidon plant has not been determined, a consultant study last year pegged the median price at nearly $2,000 per acre-foot — a rate nearly double what the county water district pays the Municipal Water District of Orange County for an acre-foot of treated water.

Mesa Water gets 70% of its supply from the county basin. The remaining 30% is pumped by its Gisler Avenue facility from a deep, underground aquifer that, unlike the basin, is unaffected by droughts.

Mesa Water officials said the property tax survey about Poseidon is a first. General Manager Paul Shoenberger said he hopes the Orange County Water District will do something similar on a countywide level to gauge voter interest in boosting property taxes to pay for the proposed plant.

Shoenberger said if such a property tax is approved by two-thirds of voters, that revenue would most likely go to the county water district, not Mesa Water, which doesn’t collect any property taxes to fund itself.

Huntington Beach resident John Earl, who publishes the website Surf City Voice, pointed out in a July posting Poseidon’s long-standing assertion that the desalination plant would require no taxpayer funds.

He contends that Mesa Water’s mailer “mixes hotly disputed assertions, such as calling the project ‘environmentally sensitive and cost-effective,’ with leading questions.”

Mesa Water’s president, Shawn Dewane, who also serves on the Orange County Water District, supports the plant.

“We have sound, practical solutions to our current water supply challenges,” Dewane wrote in a recent editorial submitted to the Daily Pilot. “Adding desalinated ocean water to the county’s water supply portfolio is timely, supported by a majority and provides a safe, local and reliable drinking water supply.”

Thursday’s meeting begins at 6 p.m. at Mesa Water’s headquarters, 1965 Placentia Ave., Costa Mesa.