ACTION ALERT = desalination plant -Speak out to protect marine life in
the Santa Barbara Channel!
Thursday, January 29 at 9am on the 4th floor of the Santa Barbara County
building (105 E. Anapamu St.).
Help protect marine life in the Santa Barbara Channel by testifying at a
public hearing
At the request of the City of Santa Barbara, the Central Coast Regional
Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) has proposed a permit amendment to
allow the City to draw seawater into its desalination plant through an
open ocean intake.
Channelkeeper has been lobbying for an investigation of the feasibility
of drawing seawater into the desalination plant through a subsurface
intake instead. Open ocean intakes kill billions of marine organisms,
whereas subsurface intakes virtually eliminate marine life mortality. The
State Water Board is about to adopt a new policy to require every new and
expanded desalination facility in California to utilize a subsurface
intake as the environmentally superior technology unless it is adequately
demonstrated to be infeasible.
The California Water Code requires that desalination facilities use the
best available site, design, technology, and mitigation measures feasible
to minimize the intake and mortality of all forms of marine life. The
RWQCB failed to certify that the City complied with this requirement when
it first permitted the desalination plant in 1991, so they are now
seeking to make a retroactive determination of compliance so that the
City can begin operating the facility again with the outmoded and
environmentally harmful open ocean intake.
Please stand up for marine life in the Santa Barbara Channel by
testifying at the RWQCB hearing on January 29. Here are some talking
points:
Tell the RWQCB why you care about/depend on healthy marine resources in
the Santa Barbara Channel and ask them to fulfill their mandate to
protect those resources.
Urge the RWQCB to conduct or require a present-day analysis of the
feasibility of a subsurface intake - not one based on the best technology
available in 1991 - and to require the City to use a subsurface intake if
it is found to be feasible in order to minimize the mortality of marine
life caused by the City's desalination plant.
Urge the RWQCB to require the City to implement the best mitigation
feasible to minimize the intake and mortality of all forms of marine life
caused by the City's desalination plant as required by the California
Water Code by accurately quantifying and fully offsetting that
mortality.
THANK YOU for speaking out to hold the RWQCB and the City accountable for
their duty to protect marine life!
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=edd1d1ae-51f3-449c-ac7e-abcbc6cd2e54&c=f0a32c50-41d2-11e3-a5ec-d4ae529ce48a&ch=f1eb3cb0-41d2-11e3-a666-d4ae529ce48a
Additional information:
Desalination Fact Sheet
The RWQCB hearing agenda (see Item No. 9)
The RWQCB's Staff Report on the item
The RWQCB's Draft Permit Amendment (skip to Attachment G starting on page
131)
Santa Barbara Channelkeeper's Comment Letter on the Draft Permit
Amendment
The RWQCB's response to our comments
The City of Santa Barbara's Comment Letter
(805) 962-2571
P.O. Box 92156, Santa Barbara, CA 93190
margie@sbpermaculture.org
http://www.sbpermaculture.org
P
Please consider the
environment before printing this email