COSTA MESA, Calif.—As planes flew in for lunchtime landings at John Wayne airport, environmentalists gathered May 11 in the offices of Orange County Coastkeeper to discuss one of Huntington Beach’s most sensitive topics—a $1.4 billion desalination plant that has been on the discussion table for 22 years.
“When you’re going to spend $1.4 billion, it better be for something that you really need. And the fact is that this project isn’t needed in Orange County,” Ray Hiemstra of Orange County Coastkeeper said. “The way desalination works is it’s very local, so this water won’t go anywhere outside of Orange County if it’s ever produced. We have an abundance of water, we have a huge aquifer, and we have a huge recycling capacity that covers the vast majority of our needs.”
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