Water districts voiced support for the project, with the Santa Margarita Water District calling it “an important demonstration project to show that small-scale, distributed ocean desalination plants are feasible not only in South Orange County, but also in other areas of … California.”īut a coalition of environmental groups and the Society of Native Nations raised concerns about the environmental impacts and questioned the need for the project, warning that the plant’s discharge could pollute waters frequented by marine life, such as whales and dolphins. “And I’m glad now that we can show the other agencies and whoever else is interested in this that we are fully supportive of desal, when it’s a good project.” “I feel that the commission has been under kind of a cloud of doubt from the people who believe in desal - that we were somehow going to turn down any project whether it was a good one or a bad one,” said commissioner Dayna Bochco. These communities rely almost entirely on water imported from Northern California and the Colorado River, rendering them vulnerable to drought and earthquakes that could damage critical water lines. The Coastal Commission cited the project’s efforts to avoid harming marine life, as well as the need to buffer local water supplies. Wells running from Doheny State Beach would pull water from beneath the ocean floor, which would then be piped to the desalination facility inland of the Pacific Coast Highway in Dana Point. The South Coast Water District’s Doheny Ocean Desalination project, which the commission unanimously approved, would help serve the district’s roughly 35,000 residents in Dana Point, South Laguna Beach and parts of San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano.
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