The California Coastal Commission recently approved Edison’s request to upgrade the Pebbly Beach Desalination Facility. This item was scheduled for a July 12 hearing, but was moved to the Consent Calendar and approved with conditions.
According to the Coastal Commission Staff report, Edison proposed to install a new water well, a storage tank, and other upgrades at the desal plant.
“SCE provides water utility services to the City of Avalon and nearby areas on Catalina Island and the new equipment is meant to increase the facility’s production capacity and improve water reliability to these communities,” according to the staff report.
“Catalina Island has long had limited water resources – provided primarily from groundwater and precipitation—some of which is stored in the Middle Ranch Reservoir inland of Avalon,” according to the staff report
“During recent drought years, the area was subject to several significant water restrictions tied to reduced water levels in the Reservoir. In 2016, SCE added a temporary desalination unit that worked in concert with the PBDF to more efficiently treat seawater and increase production,” according to the report.
“Part of the currently proposed project would make the temporary unit and the unit’s increased production a permanent part of the overall PBDF,” the report said.
“The proposed project also has the potential to raise environmental justice concerns, due largely to seawater desalination being among the most expensive methods to provide drinking water and due to the relatively small number of residents and SCE ratepayers that would bear the project’s approximately five-million dollar cost,” the report said.
“However, SCE has proposed as part of this project a rate-setting approach that would distribute these costs and others to its wider Southern California ratepayer base in a manner that would substantially reduce this potential impact. The California Public Utilities Commission, which has sole authority to set rates for regulated utilities such as SCE, is currently considering this proposal as part of a rate-setting proceeding,” the report said.
One of the conditions of the desalination upgrades says that:
- if the PUC executive director determines the rate increase approved by the PUC is greater than the rate in Edison’s proposed application;
- then Edison will have to amend its coastal development permit to incude measures to lessen the impact of the rate increase on low-income Islanders.
“To address the project’s construction activities in and near coastal waters, Special Condition 1 requires SCE to submit a spill prevention and response plan, and Special Condition 2 requires that SCE implement a number of construction best management practices to avoid or minimize potential impacts to water quality and marine life.
“Because the project is near areas known to serve as breeding and nesting grounds for Garibaldi, a special-status fish species, Special Condition 3 prohibits construction activities from occurring in or near the water during its breeding and nesting season, which runs from March 1 through July 31 each year,” the report said.
“This inwater and nearshore work would also occur in waters used by marine mammals year-round, and Special Condition 4 therefore requires SCE to implement a marine mammal protection plan with measures meant to avoid harm or disturbance to marine mammal species that may be nearby,” the report said.
