California’s Orange County board of supervisors has reaffirmed its support for a proposed US$ 1 billion desalination plant at Huntington Beach despite a forecast fall in anticipated water demand growth.
The county’s municipal water district has estimated in a recent report that demand in 2040 will be 17% under previous projections. According to local press, environmental activists have leapt on the forecast as support for their assertion that the plant is unnecessary. But the board of supervisors has and urged the California Coastal Commission to approve the desalination plant project’s final permit.
In it report, the water district said the county’s annual water demand would fall by 113,000 Ml. The proposed desalination plant’s annual output would be 70,000 Ml.
Project developer, Poseidon Water, needs one last permit to achieve full approval for the 200 Ml/d Huntingdon Beach plant. Poseidon insists the plant would provide drought-proof, control to the region’s water supply.