Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/category/topics/environment/)
Residents, experts and environmental advocates gathered at a Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board meeting last Friday to oppose a permit for the Poseidon Water desalination facility in Huntington Beach.
At their next meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 17, Garden Grove council members will decide whether to lease the 100-acre Willowick Golf Course to hotel development company McWhinney over the next five decades, with currently no information from city staff on exactly how much in dollars the developer would be paying annually for the property.
Garden Grove city officials today will decide whether one of the last remaining open green spaces in a working-class area will be handed to a for-profit developer for decades, despite an ongoing local court battle over whether city officials actually have the legal authority to do so.
Garden Grove city officials have put on hold selling off the Willowick Golf Course – owned by Garden Grove and located in Santa Ana – to a for-profit developer and will instead abide by the state Surplus Land Act, which means they’ll look at affordable housing options for the site first.
Plans to construct a 16-foot barrier-fence around parts of the former Ascon Landfill site in Huntington Beach start this week, although the project intended to clean 46 years of oil waste and debris from the location remains at a standstill.
The installation is the city’s latest effort to control trash flow into the bay. Other projects, such as monthly beach cleanups and the recently-purchased $1.7 million trash-filtering water wheel approved by the City Council members on Sept. 25, focus on removing existing trash from the bay’s waters.
Irvine is considering switching from Southern California Edison to a greener source of power for its residents, ideally at a lower cost.
Orange County backcountry activist and land use attorney Gloria Sefton talks about the constant development pressures on Orange County’s land use specific plans, especially those in the canyon areas, and her numerous successful lawsuits to defend the public planning process for canyon residents.
An appeals court blocked the Esperanza Hills project because supervisors approved it without minimum evacuation standards.
Paul Cook, general manager for the Irvine Ranch Water District and Brian Lochrie, a spokesman for Poseidon, which is proposing a desal plant in Huntington Beach, both talk about the pros and cons for taxpayers and residents about desalinated water.
