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 Debt Limit Allocation Committee (CDLAC) for $1.1 billion in public
dollars to build the private water infrastructure.
###
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.