For Immediate Release
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
Media Contacts
Lucila Garcia, López-Wagner Strategies, 323-646-2150 (English, Español)
Andrea Leon Grossman, 310-621-2291
Azul Statement on West Basin Water District Voting Down LA County Desalination Plant
Azul is actively working to stop a similarly proposed seawater desalination plant in Orange Country that threatens local communities
LOS ANGELES, CA – The following is a statement from Andrea León-Grossmann, Climate Action Director of Azul, a California-based Latinx environmental justice organization working to protect the ocean and coasts.
“We praise the West Basin Water District for voting to place the health of the local community, along with conservation and values of sustainability, as top-line priorities for residents of the Greater Los Angeles area by denouncing this unreliable, costly, and inefficient Ocean Water Desalination Project. Today’s vote clears a path forward to embrace stronger water management and alternative options to replenish and manage local water supplies, like recycling and groundwater approaches. We applaud the West Basin Water District’s board members for standing up for environmental justice and the very people that this desalination plant would have adversely affected. This decision must reverberate across the state, especially the governor’s office and the California Coastal Commission — desalination plants are not the solution to alleviate California’s poor water management situation, not here in LA nor in our neighboring Orange County where one is up for key permitting in March 2022.”
Related Background: Azul is an active Stop Poseidon coalition member alongside the California Coastkeeper Alliance, California Coastal Protection Network, Orange County Coastkeeper and the Surfrider Foundation. #StopPoseidon is working to halt an Orange County desalination plant proposed by a multibillion-dollar foreign private equity firm, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, and its subsidiary, Poseidon Water, who seek to drain 107 million gallons of the ocean per day for the next 50 years and sell it back to residents at exorbitantly higher cost. Additionally, they are asking the California Debit Limit Allocation Committee (CDLAC) for $1.1 billion in public dollars to build the private water infrastructure.
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AZUL: Azul is a grassroots organization working with Latinxs to conserve coasts and oceans. It was founded in 2011 to bring Latinxs perspectives and participation to ocean conservation and has long advocated for environmental justice and equity in the state of California, across the nation and at international levels. Follow them on Twitter at @AzulDotOrg.