Poseidon Town: The Beginning

Poseidon’s subsidiary role then as now was to financialize a portion of publicly owned water infrastructure in Orange County for the benefit of Poseidon and its investors

The 20th century iteration of Poseidon Town started with the formation of Poseidon Resources, Inc. (AKA Poseidon Water) in 1995 by venture capitalists from Warburg-Pincus and former General Electric executives, including former GE president Walt Winrow, who was Poseidon’s president until 2008.

Warburg-Pincus is a multinational corporation that in 2005 had investment holdings in 120 companies in North and South America, Asia, and Europe in 2005, according to Hoover’s online.

Poseidon’s subsidiary role then as now was to financialize a portion of publicly owned water infrastructure in Orange County for the benefit of Poseidon and the project’s investors through “public-private partnerships” (PPPs).

At the same time, Poseidon was on a similar track in Carlsbad in San Diego County, a story that I will tell more about as Poseidon Town Through the Wormhole unravels.

Poseidon’s Orange County mission was to build a $1.4 billion (in today’s dollars) ocean desalination plant on top of an earthqu…