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Archive for the 'Public works' Category

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Poseidon adventure: $350 million public subsidy for private desalination plant

November 13th, 2009, 5:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

poseidon(Vote in our poll: Should Poseidon get the subsidy?)

The mighty Metropolitan Water District of Southern California agreed this week to pony up $14 million per year - or $350 million over the next 25 years, if you prefer to think of it that way - to pay for desalinated water in San Diego County.

That money will go to public entities - cities and water districts - to offset the cost of water they’ll buy from a private, yet-to-be-built, desalination plant in Carlsbad. That plant will be constructed and owned by Poseidon Resources LLC. 

If this Poseidon thing rings a bell, it’s not just because you remember Shelley Winters from the disaster movie. Poseidon is also working on a similar project in Huntington Beach. 

The San Diego project, however, is much farther along, and will be Southern California’s first major foray into ocean desalination. Construction of the $300 million-or-so plant should begin next year, and water is supposed to flow in 2012. It will provide enough water for about 300,000 residents, or  100,000 homes a year. (Over the quarter-century, that translates to some 1.4 million acre-feet of new water - nearly twice the capacity of Diamond Valley Lake, the region’s largest drinking water reservoir near Hemet, Met says. See Met report here: met-desal-report)

Poseidon hopes to issue more than $500 million in tax-free bonds to construct the Carlsbad facility.

The $350 million public dollars that will make their way to Poseidon’s pockets over the next quarter-century come from Met’s Local Resources Program, which aims to boost SoCal’s own water supplies, and reduce dependence on the imported stuff. It’s a controversial move:

  • Critics want Met to fund public projects, not private ones.
  • Environmentalists worry about the impact of highly salty brine, a byproduct of desalination, and want to pursue cheaper alternatives (conservation, recycling, recapturing stormwater and the like).
  • Others worry about Poseidon’s splotchy track record. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Cities • Consumer stuff • Public works • Special districts • Water | 22 Comments »

Vote! Should Poseidon get $350 million public subsidy for private desal plant?

November 13th, 2009, 4:59 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

poseidon1(Read the main story here)

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California agreed this week to pony up $350 million over the next 25 years to pay for desalinated water in San Diego County.

That money will go to public entities - cities and water districts - to offset the cost of water they’ll buy from a private, yet-to-be-built, desalination plant in Carlsbad. It will be constructed and owned by Poseidon Resources LLC.

Some feel that Met should be funding public efforts to find new water, not private ones. Others worry about the project’s effect on the environment. And still others question Poseidon’s ability to get the job done.

So. Should Met - whose money comes from the 19 million Southern Californians who pay for water through their cities and water districts - cough up the $350 million?
  • Add an Answer
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Posted in: Cities • Consumer stuff • Polls • Public works • Special districts • Water | 7 Comments »

Will SR-91 stimulus project create 493 jobs — or 60?

October 13th, 2009, 5:00 am by Jessica Terrell

For months, Orange County Transportation Authority officials have boasted that projects funded by federal stimulus money could create as many as 3,781 local jobs.

But a close examination of employment estimates shows that formulas for estimating job creation vary wildly and actual payroll numbers are likely to be much, much lower.

Orange County’s largest stimulus project, an extension of the SR-91, was projected by OCTA to create as many as 1,332 jobs. According to the transportation agency’s formula, 493 of those jobs should have been direct full time construction work lasting a year.

But the company that won the contract estimates the project will take 100,000 manhours – the equivalent of less than 60 full time jobs lasting the length of the 10-month project.
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Federal spending • Financial meltdown • Public works • Transportation | 9 Comments »

Despite scathing report and vows to change, county planning still gouges residents

October 9th, 2009, 5:39 am by Jennifer Muir

build-your-own-solar-panel-main_fullIf there’s anything you can count on in government, it’s that change doesn’t happen fast.

That’s why the Watchdog wasn’t exactly surprised to get a letter this week from Santa Ana resident and retired Redondo Beach motorcycle cop Mark Rodina, complaining the county’s planning department overcharged him for a permit to upgrade the aging electrical panel on his house. Rodina wants to install solar panels, and fixing up the 1960s-era wiring is the first step.

So in September, Rodina headed down to the county’s planning department to pay for a permit that his electrician friend said would cost about $50 bucks. (The Watchdog double checked this estimate in Fountain Valley, and was told a similar permit would cost a flat fee of about $48.)

Imagine his surprise when the clerk at OC Planning told him he’d have to open an account and put down a $400 deposit.

Rodina was told that whenever a county employee — from an inspector to a clerk — worked on his request, they’d charge the time they spent against that deposit. The county would refund anything left over in the account when the job was done.

The practice is called charging for Time and Materials, and it was one of the main problems called out in July in a  scathing audit of the county’s planning department, which described customer service as “mediocre at best.” Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Bureaucratic bungles • County government • Public works | 33 Comments »

California asks Uncle Sam for $4.6 billion for high-speed trains

September 25th, 2009, 2:33 pm by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

high-speed-railImagine whizzing from Anaheim to San Francisco in just two hours and 57 minutes on a high-speed train, to enjoy dim sum in Chinatown.

For $40 billion or so, it might just come to pass!

On Thursday, the California High-Speed Rail Authority decided to apply for $4.57 billion in Federal High-Speed Rail Stimulus Funding  for 10 projects throughout the state. That includes:

  • $2 billion for the Los Angeles to Anaheim segment,
  • $1.28 billion for the San Francisco to San Jose segment,
  • $819 million for the Fresno to Bakersfield segment, and
  • $466 million for the Merced to Fresno segment.

California would use state bond funds - from the recent passage of Proposition 1A, the High-Speed Rail Act,  to match federal money dollar for dollar. The money would pay for preliminary engineering, project-level environmental work, mitigation, final design and construction.

Each of these segments is supposed to come online by Sept. 30, 2017.

This doesn’t mean we have the money, of course, but we’re in a good position to get our eager little hands on at least some of it. Why? Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Federal government • Federal spending • Public works • State government • Transportation • • • | 31 Comments »

Great Park must pay for failed attempt to keep info secret from its own board members

September 22nd, 2009, 5:00 am by Sean Emery

great-parkThe full price tag for a controversial Great Park lawsuit has finally been revealed - with park leaders spending more than $200,000 in a failed attempt to block several of its own board members from accessing resumes tied to a contentious CEO search.

In a response to public information requests by the Register, the city has acknowledged spending $126,472 on legal fees defending itself against the lawsuit filed by council members Christina Shea and Steven Choi.

Attorney Ben Pugh, who represented Shea and Choi, reported last month that the city paid another $75,000 to cover his clients’ legal fees.

The bulk of the legal fees, $120,982, went to Nossaman LLP, the Great Park’s contracted legal firm. The remaining $5,490went to Rutan & Tucker, who handle city attorney services for Irvine.

A ROCKY CEO SEARCH

The effort to end a revolving door of Great Park CEOs turned into one of the more contentious chapters in the Great Park’s history, with allegations of backdoor deals and political posturing thromarty-bryantwn by both sides.

After going through four chief executives during the first four years of Great Park development - including one, Marty Bryant (right), who was later revealed to have pleaded guilty years earlier to embezzling funds from San Juan Capistrano to buy cocaine - the city embarked on what staffers described as the most ambitious recruitment effort in Irvine’s history.

Shea and Choi cried foul, however, when two men with close ties to Irvine politics were named the finalists among 150 candidates. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Cities • Great Park • Public works • • • | 46 Comments »

Supes join the water district secession fight. Sort of.

August 25th, 2009, 1:56 pm by Jennifer Muir

Write a letter or send a lobbyist?

That’s what supervisors debated Tuesday during a discussion about how to keep lawmakers in Sacramento out of a debate into whether southern cities in the Municipal Water District of Orange County should be allowed to split from the north.

The Watchdog has reported that southern members of the district want to break up the district because they say it could save ratepayers up to $1.24 million a year. MWDOC buys water from Metropolitan Water District of Southern California then resells it to 28 cities and water districts, and the cities in the south say the district spends to much money and doesn’t represent them well.

Problem is, splitting up would cost ratepayers in the north an additional $2.7 million a year, even though they have their own underground aquifer and don’t need much imported water. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Bureaucratic bungles • County government • Public works • Special districts • Water | Post a Comment »

Cash-cow special district gets $18 million in federal stimulus dollars

July 23rd, 2009, 6:00 am by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer

groundwaterOne of the wealthiest special districts in California is getting $17.8 million in federal stimulus money.

The rather flush Irvine Ranch Water District (which has $1 billion in cash and investments, according to its most recent audit) will get the dough from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Those millions will pay for three local water supply reliability projects, district spokeswoman Beth Beeman says.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Federal spending • Public works • Special districts • Water | 13 Comments »

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