Election 2020 Shock: Study Proves Poseidon's Greed is the Need for HB Desal Plant

Left out of Poseidon’s great investment opportunity, the study notes, are the San Diego ratepayers who are “effectively funding a local capital arrangement which globally benefits others elsewhere.”

By John Earl

Surf City Voice

A recent but little-noticed study of the "financialistion" of Poseidon Resources' giant ocean desalination plant in Carlsbad, an identical twin to its proposed Huntington Beach desalination project, reveals the company's scheme to make profits for itself and investors on the backs of Orange County ratepayers.

The study, "Financialising urban water infrastructure: Extracting local value, distributing value globally," written by Michael Pryke and John Allan at the Open University, UK, was published in 2019 in Urban Studies Journal.

Poseidon's $1 billion Carlsbad desalination plant, which opened in 2015, was "something of a development in the consolidation of urban infrastructure as a financial asset class," the study found, "or more specifically in the ability of financial intermediaries to extract value from illiquid assets by turning them into liquid forms."

The study follows 20 years of failure by Poseidon or its lead agency, the Orange County Water District (…