Wires would 'knife' backcountry, conservationists say

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Saturday, March 11, 2006 11:32 PM PST ∞

With one week to go before the unveiling of the route for a controversial power line, environmental groups are preparing to shine the spotlight on the harm they believe the $1.4 billion Sunrise Powerlink project would cause to San Diego County's mountain and desert backcountry.

San Diego Gas & Electric Co., which powers 1.2 million homes and 100,000 businesses in San Diego County and southern Orange County, is seeking the green light from the California Public Utilities Commission to string 500-kilovolt wires from giant, 160-foot metallic structures spread for more than 100 miles east to west.

Utility officials plan to unveil their preferred route March 20 at a meeting in Rancho Penasquitos. The proposed transmission line has sparked much concern across the backcountry, as candidate routes suggest the wires will slice through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and could arc through Julian and Ramona.

The utility says the line would deliver 1,000 megawatts, roughly one-fourth of the total its customers collectively use on the hottest of summer days. A megawatt is the standard measuring unit for electricity, and typically is enough to keep the lights on in 750 to 1,000 homes, according to the California Independent System Operator, which oversees the state's electric grid.

SDG&E says it wants to build the electron superhighway to shore up a looming shortfall of electricity in San Diego County and to tap developing sources of geothermal and solar power near the Salton Sea in Imperial County.

Geothermal technology uses steam from natural underground geysers to produce electricity, and solar panels harness the sun's raw power. The surge of interest in solar, geothermal and other energy sources is being driven by a state law that requires California utilities to obtain 20 percent of their electricity from so-called renewable sources by 2010. SDG&E gets 6 percent from such sources now.

But conservationists contend there are other ways to boost the region's power supply, and that those alternatives must be explored because of the deep wound ---- as wide as a football field ---- that the line would cut into oak-covered mountains and wildflower-carpeted desert canyons.

"The project would be like a knife slicing through some of the last best natural landscapes in San Diego County," said David Hogan, urban wildlands program director for the Center for Biological Diversity in San Diego. "They are some of the most beautiful lands in the county. These are the places that people like to drive through to enjoy sweeping natural vistas."

Hogan suggested the project would be nothing short of a direct assault on the land.

"They are going to be cutting oak trees. They are going to be cutting pine trees. And they are going to be clearing important natural habitat like coastal sage scrub," he said.

Risks and mitigation


Stephanie Donovan, a utility spokeswoman, said the company would not in fact cut one continuous swath of vegetation from metro San Diego to the Imperial County desert. Donovan said that SDG&E, if given permission to build the project, will clear places to set the broad bases of the poles. But she said it is not true that there would be bare ground beneath the wires, in between poles.

She stressed that the utility is committed to building as environmentally friendly of a project as possible.

"We take our responsibility of being a good environmental steward very seriously," Donovan said. "It has always been our goal to mitigate and minimize our project's impact on the environment and on communities."

Kelly Fuller, a spokeswoman for the San Diego and Imperial Counties chapter of the Sierra Club, questions the utility's commitment.

At a recent public forum on the project in the backcountry community of Santa Ysabel, Fuller showed a slide of a decimated sugar bush that she said had been shredded by utility maintenance workers.

"If this is what happens during routine maintenance, what's going to happen during construction?" she asked.

That question aside, Fuller suggests the transmission line would cause so many problems for the environment that it would be nearly impossible to minimize the impact.

Conservationists maintain that the clearing of lands ---- to whatever degree ---- would pose significant threats to endangered species such as the desert bighorn sheep, open the door for exotic plants to take root in the backcountry, and introduce an ignition source for wildfires.

"It makes no sense to increase the fire risk in the most flammable part of our county that just burns and burns and burns," said Fuller, who added that the route is likely to cross territory torched by the massive Cedar fire in October 2003. "If you get a fire too many times in an area, it changes the vegetation. And when you change the vegetation, you change the wildlife."

Donovan counters that the wires would pose minimal risk, and she notes the poles would be fashioned out of metal, not wood.

If anything, she said, the project would bolster firefighters' ability to douse wildfires because the utility's maintenance roads would open new ways for them to reach blazes in rugged, inaccessible terrain.

The problem, said Hogan, is that the improved access also would usher in target shooters off-road-vehicle riders, whose activities could spark a lot more fires, and illegal dumpers. Donovan said chains and barriers would be set in place to block access to areas by trespassers.

It's not just the potential impact on the ground that concerns conservationists. They worry about what would happen in the air, as well.

While showing a slide of a golden eagle flying gracefully above the backcountry during the Santa Ysabel meeting, Fuller said that large transmission lines have a tendency to electrocute large raptors such as eagles and hawks. And those fatal collisions can trigger outages, she said

"Nobody knows for sure how many birds get killed by transmission lines, but we know it's a lot," Fuller said.

Donovan said SDG&E would design the transmission system with the birds' safety in mind. Often, she said, the utility has placed red or yellow balls on wires to make them more visible to birds and reduce the chance of electrocution.

Donovan said the utility's environmental studies are just getting under way and SDG&E will follow what those recommend to reduce, as much as possible, Sunrise Powerlink's footprint on the land.

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-5442 or ddowney@nctimes.com.

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Sunrise Powerlink route to be announced

San Diego Gas & Electric Co. plans to announce its proposed route for its $1.4 billion Sunrise Powerlink transmission line March 20 at community working group meetings in Rancho Penasquitos and Ramona. Those meetings are scheduled for:

9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Doubletree Golf Resort, 14455 Penasquitos Drive, San Diego.

4 to 6 p.m. at the Ramona Performing Arts Center, 1521 Hanson Lane, Ramona.

The utility also plans to hold open houses on the topic, including the following in North County:

6 to 8 p.m. March 20 in Ramona, at the Ramona Performing Arts Center, 1521 Hanson Lane.

4 to 7 p.m. March 21 in Rancho Penasquitos, at the Doubletree Golf Resort, 14455 Penasquitos Drive, San Diego.

4 to 7 p.m. March 27 In Mira Mesa, at the Homewood Suites by Hilton, 11025 Vista Sorrento Parkway, San Diego.

4 to 7 p.m. March 29 in Scripps Ranch, at the Scripps Miramar Ranch Library, 10301 Scripps Lake Drive, San Diego.