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The California Coastal Commission on Thursday issued a permit for a $140 million desalination plant off the coast of Dana Point, moving the project a key step closer to turning 5 million gallons of ocean water a day into drinking water as soon as 2027.

“We believe that the project before you today, although not perfect, provides a solid example that we can use in planning for future desalination,” Kate Huckelbridge, senior environmental scientist with the Coastal Commission, said just before the agency voted unanimously to approve a development permit for the plant.

The plant, which would be aimed at south Orange County but could help shore up water supplies for residents as far away as Riverside County, still needs one more key permit to reach full regulatory approval. Also, South Coast Water District, the Laguna Beach-based agency developing the project, still needs to hammer out complex agreements with potential water agency partners before an estimated three-year construction process can begin.

But supporters of desalination breathed a sigh of relief after Thursday’s fairly smooth hearing during the Coastal Commission hearing in San Diego. The unanimous vote offered a sharp contrast from a May vote by the commission to deny a permit for a much larger desalination plant, proposed by private Poseidon Water, for a site along the coast of Huntington Beach.

People who backed the Poseidon concept cautioned at the time that the commission’s vote to kill a project that had taken 21 years, and an estimated $100 million of development, would be the death knell for desalination in California. But at least one observer of the Doheny proposal, Gregory Pierce, co-director of the UCLA Water Resources Group, called that characterization “ludicrous.”

“Poseidon was a particularly bad project. All the evidence lines up to say that,” said Pierce, who wrote a paper with colleagues in 2019 raising alarms over that project’s necessity, costs and inequities.

“Doheny seems quite a bit different.”

The plan for the plant of Doheny still drew opposition just before and during Thursday’s hearing by some environmental and tribal groups, including a coalition led by the Sierra Club.

But while Pierce sees room for improvement — particularly in terms of its energy use and protections related to rate increases for low-income water customers — he said the Coastal Commission vote on Doheny suggests there’s a path forward for desalination projects in California.

“I think desal will be a bigger part of the picture in California over time,” he said. “The technology will get better, and the need for water is only going to grow.”

There’s little question that South Coast Water District, as with most water districts in the West, needs access to more diverse, drought-proof sources of water. Some 90% of its supply now is imported from Northern California and the Colorado River, which is becoming more expensive and more subject to restrictive regulations.

Still, even supporters of projects such as the Doheny plant agree that desalination shouldn’t be the first or even third option when it comes to bolstering water supplies. That’s because converting ocean water to drinking water is still expensive, uses lots of energy and is unique in posing potential risks to marine habitat and wildlife.

So, while the Doheny project isn’t facing the same questions asked about Poseidon — particularly why a desalination plant was needed in central county, which sits on an underground aquifer that can supply 80% of its water — some people who expressed opinions related to the Doheny plant argued that desalination should be a last resort. Some also said South Coast Water District should do more to exhaust options for increasing conservation, recycling and groundwater use before greenlighting desalination projects.

“The reality is we save more water than these plants produce,” said Conner Everts, director of the Southern California Watershed Alliance, who spoke against the Doheny project. “When we save water, we save energy and we don’t harm the environment.”

But commissioners appeared swayed by the case laid out by Rick Shintaku, general manager of South Coast Water District, who insists his agency has been doing what it can to pursue those other avenues in recent years ahead of desalination.

Incentive and education programs have pushed residents to increase conservation, with SCWD customers using 20% less water than they used in 2013. And Shintaku said his agency plans to continue efforts to drive down demand even more.

The agency also has been building out water recycling systems since the 1980s, with 70% of its sewage flow now sent to a treatment plant and reused for landscaping at local parks, resorts and other common areas.

In terms of groundwater, the agency does tap into a small underground stream, treating that brackish water using a membrane system similar to what would be used in the desalination plant. But, in a good year, Shintaku said it can supply only up to 10% of the district’s needs from that source. In dry years like we’re experiencing now, he said they get nothing.

It all means that, while regulations call for water agencies to have 60 days of emergency supplies in case an earthquake or other disaster that might cut off imported water, Shintaku said they only have enough reserves for about 11 days.

The picture is similar for neighboring water agencies. That’s why Shintaku is in talks with other agencies about partnering up on the Doheny project.

Even if the need is clear and other water sources have been exhausted, critics of some desalination projects criticize the process’ typically hefty price tag, which gets largely passed along to consumers.

While the Doheny plant won’t come cheap, it’s projected to cost one-tenth as much as the Poseidon project, with a fifth of the $140 million price tag already covered by state and federal grants.

Costs also should be shared between several agencies who can benefit from the added water supply. That means monthly bills are projected to go up $2.38 per bill once the plant is built, vs. a projected increase of as much as nearly $9 per bill for the Poseidon project. And the costs connected to Doheny won’t hit all customers as a flat increase, SCWD says, with plans to study different rate structures.

But “projected to cost” and “should be shared” are the operative words there, and they were key reasons why some people still spoke against the project during Thursday’s hearing.

Price tags on such projects tend to spike along the way. Estimates for this plant already have gone up from an initial $100 million about five years ago, to $140 million today, due to rising costs, with more than $8 million spent to date on planning.

Surfboards lay on the beach at the Doheny State Beach Campground, just south of San Juan Creek in Dana Point on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. Behind the campground and across E. Pacific Coast Highway is a proposed site for the Doheny Desalination Project. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Hotel sits at the edge of San Juan Creek and E. Pacific Coast Highway in Dana Point on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. The hotel would be adjacent to a proposed site for the Doheny Desalination Project.(Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

An oceanfront campsites on the beach at the Doheny State Beach Campground, just south of San Juan Creek in Dana Point on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. Behind the campground and across E. Pacific Coast Highway is a proposed site for the Doheny Desalination Project. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Cyclists ride along the San Juan Creek Trail near E. Pacific Coast Highway in Dana Point on Wednesday, October 12, 2022, just across the creekbed from a proposed site for the Doheny Desalination Project. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Hotel on Coast Highway across from Doheny State Beach Campground in Dana Point on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. The hotel would be adjacent to a proposed site for the Doheny Desalination Project.(Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

An oceanfront campsite on the beach at the Doheny State Beach Campground, just south of San Juan Creek in Dana Point on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. Behind the campground and across E. Pacific Coast Highway is a proposed site for the Doheny Desalination Project. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The proposed site for the Doheny Desalination Project adjacent to San Juan Creek and E. Pacific Coast Highway in Dana Point on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

A cyclist rides along the San Juan Creek Trail in Dana Point on Wednesday, October 12, 2022, just across the creekbed from a proposed site for the Doheny Desalination Project. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Hotel sits at the edge of San Juan Creek in Dana Point on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. The hotel would be adjacent to a proposed site for the Doheny Desalination Project.(Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Beachgoers spend the afternoon on the beach at the Doheny State Beach Campground, just south of San Juan Creek in Dana Point on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. Behind the campground and across E. Pacific Coast Highway is a proposed site for the Doheny Desalination Project. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

While the district has letters of interest from San Clemente and Laguna Beach Water District, it also hasn’t yet finalized deals with any partners, who Shintaku said are waiting on final permits to get approved before finishing their own due diligence on the project.

That includes neighboring Moulton Niguel Water District, which serves residents from Mission Viejo down to San Juan Capistrano. Matt Collings, assistant general manager at Moulton Niguel, said his district is monitoring the Doheny project but is waiting on a detailed term sheet from SCWD so they can do their own studies on how a partnership would impact their water supplies and finances.

Shintaku also is talking to Eastern Municipal Water District, which serves nearly 1 million residents in western Riverside County, from Moreno Valley down to Temecula. That district is considering partnering with SCWD for a paper transfer of water rights, where Riverside County residents would get additional rights to other sources of water in exchange for supporting the Doheny project.

While water transfers are common in California, this would likely be the first paper transfer of rights to desalinated ocean water, per Joe Mouawad, general manager of Eastern Municipal Water.

Mouawad’s district now imports about half of its water. But with those water supplies dwindling and his 558-square-mile district only 38% built out, Mouawad said he believes all of California is “absolutely” at the point of needing to look to sources such as desalination for future water.

A third box the Doheny project ticks that projects such as Poseidon missed is to use a design plan that reduces the plant’s potential impact on area marine life at its discharge location and virtually eliminates those risks at intake locations.

This plant would be the first commercial-scale desalination project to use slant wells that would collect seawater from beneath the seafloor, offshore from Doheny State Beach, just south of the mouth of San Juan Creek. Seawater would be routed via a new pipeline to a treatment plant that will be built at a nearby site already owned by SCWD.

Pulling water through the sand via four slated extending at angles several hundred feet from the shore means marine life won’t be sucked into intake pipes, per the Coastal Commission report.

While environmental groups are raising concerns that this is “untested” technology, Shintaku and his team point to two test projects that have used slant wells for several years, off Dana Point and off Monterey. Shintaku said both projects have proved successful, with plenty of flow and no substantial impact on nearby groundwater resources.

Environmental and tribal activists still shared concerns Thursday about brine that will be discharged from the plant, which will include concentrated salt and chemicals left from the desalination project deposited in waters frequented by whales and other marine life.

To limit risks, SCWD plans to route its effluent to an existing, approved brine discharge system at South Orange County Wastewater Authority’s treatment plant. Those flows are discharged two miles offshore, 100 feet below surface water. That means no new outtake is needed for this project, while mixing effluent streams will help both flows mix more quickly with ocean water.

With higher flows at that outtake site, though, Coastal Commission staff said water will come out fast enough to potentially kill some plankton in the area. So the commission is requiring SCWD to create or restore nearly 8 acres of marine or estuary habitat to offset those impacts.

An exact site for that work hasn’t yet been identified, with wetland and marsh areas in Los Cerritos, Huntington Beach and Laguna Beach under consideration.

SCWD also will be required to make improvements to the campground at Doheny State Beach, which would be closed for 18 to 24 months during construction.

Another remaining concern for opponents of the Doheny plant is energy use from the state’s stressed power grid.

To add 5 million gallons of water a day, the Doheny plant is slated to use 27,000 megawatt hours of power a year. For context, a typical Orange County household uses 6 megawatt hours a year.

The water district’s plan so far calls for using up to 5 acres of solar panels, which would provide 15% of that power.

Coastal Commission staff is requiring SCWD to come up with plans to make the facility fully “net carbon neutral” through some combination of adding renewable energy sources, reducing energy demands or buying emission offsets or credits.

The project will next head to the California State Lands Commission for discussion of its final needed permit. That vote is slated for Dec. 9.

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