Robert Hunter RIP: Water District GM quietly helped sink Poseidon's desal ship
Hunter served as general manager of the Municipal Water District of Orange County from 2013 until Jan. 19, 2023
Officials from water districts across Southern California gathered at the Westin Hotel in Costa Mesa last week to pay tribute to Robert (“Rob”) Hunter, general manager at the Municipal Water District of Orange County (MWDOC), who died last month of cancer.
Water dignitaries present included Adel Hagekhalil, general manager for Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and its board chair, Adán Ortega, who facilitated.
A panel of Hunter’s former colleagues recalled his keen knowledge of SoCal water issues, even after working many years in top-level water-management positions in Georgia.
They also recalled his continued commitment to the job, including his concern for fellow workers, despite his cancer.
Low-keyed public servant
As a public servant, Hunter was low-keyed but effective, a rare combination in the public water industry.
The general manager at your Southern California water district is well-paid (Hunter earned $373,709.26 in 2021).
It’s an enviable position that requires walking a political tightrope just above the heads of avaricious water-board directors who hire and fire. Rob Hunter, as I knew him, was exceptionally good at that.
His single most notable achievement, barely alluded to by the panel, was helping to end Poseidon Water’s $1.4 billion ocean desalination project.
Before Hunter, MWDOC was Poseidon’s cheerleader squad. But its 27 member-agencies didn’t want to pay for expensive desalination water. So MWDOC stepped back and the Orange County Water District, which manages the county’s groundwater basin, made Poseidon’s project its own obsession.
Fanatical OCWD board members and other Poseidon allies helped push the project forward through illegal secret committee meetings, misleading propaganda, and dirty politics.
OCWD staff were prohibited from studying project alternatives.
But under Hunter’s watch, MWDOC conducted two consecutive water reliability studies of its own, despite intimidation from OCWD.
The 2018 Reliability Study ranked the Poseidon project the least efficacious of eight possible water supply alternatives for the next 30 years. Any supply shortfalls, it said, could be met by modest conservation measures.
State Regional Water Quality Control Board director, William Von Blasingame, cited the study during a permit hearing in 2021, questioning the need for the project and reducing its chance for approval.
That infuriated Gov. Gavin Newsom, who fired Blasingame, making it clear to state regulators that he expected a thumbs up for Poseidon.
The regional water board complied, but not the California Coastal Commission. Its members voted unanimously last year to kill the desal project, calling it environmentally unsustainable, unjust, and unneeded.
Much of the credit for that outcome goes to a grassroots movement of public citizens that started more than 20 years ago in Huntington Beach and spread throughout the state.
But Rob Hunter deserves a lot of credit for being one of the few water officials in the state to help shine the light on the Poseidon project for what it was—the biggest SoCal water-management scam of the 21st century.
Adán Ortega, who led the panel discussion, should have noted that up front. Then, the audience should have given Rob Hunter and MWDOC a standing ovation.