SDG&E wants Borrego Springs option on table

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Thursday, March 1, 2007 10:40 PM PST ∞

BORREGO SPRINGS ---- San Diego County's electric utility is trying to preserve the option of stringing wires through this desert town, in case its preferred route for a new power line through the heart of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park doesn't work out.

The California Public Utilities Commission had proposed eliminating dozens of alternate routes for San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s $1.3 billion Sunrise Powerlink project. One of those would avoid much of the park by running north along Highway 86, then east along county route S-22 through Borrego Springs.

But the utility, in comments mailed to the regulatory agency Saturday, asked that the Borrego Springs option be retained.

The preferred route is several miles to the south. It follows Highway 78 and Grapevine Road through the state park, and runs next to one of only two park campgrounds.

"This is obviously a difficult area for the project," said Scott Crider, public affairs manager for the project Thursday. The power line is fiercely opposed by supporters of the 600,000-acre state park, the nation's largest.

"This (Borrego Springs) option would reduce impacts to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park," Crider said. "And we want to make sure that the commission has a wide range of alternatives that go through the park to study."

At the same time, he said, the utility realizes the northern route would affect more property owners.

The commission is expected to release a list of the alternate routes this month that will be studied for a required environmental impact report. That report is due out by mid-July.

"We want to be very clear that our preferred route is still the preferred route," Crider said. "We are not asking for a switch."

About 23 of the line's 150 miles would traverse Anza-Borrego. The northern alternative would cross 12 miles.

Landowners in Tubb Canyon on the outskirts of Borrego Springs want that alternative taken off the table.

Several of them have been fighting San Diego Gas & Electric in court to prevent utility officials from coming onto their land and drilling soil cores and surveying. And they have been pinning their hopes, in large part, on a commission recommendation to eliminate the Borrego Springs route.

One is Bill Collins of Encinitas, whose family has owned 700 acres along a scenic mountain overlook on route S-22 since 1952.

"We have the best views in the whole valley. But this would, of course, destroy any value of the land on the mountain," Collins said. "And it would harm the bighorn sheep."

The commission proposed eliminating the route because it would pass through sheep habitat and four state wilderness areas.

Esther Rubin, a biologist at the Conservation Biology Institute in Borrego Springs, said she recently saw 17 bighorns in that area.

"(The power line) will probably threaten this endangered population," Rubin said.

The San Diego utility, in its filing, states that while the northern route would eliminate some wilderness, it would leave other unprotected lands intact along the preferred route. And it would open the door to a trade that could deliver a net increase in park wilderness acreage, the utility said.

As for the endangered animals, the filing states that, "As the route enters the park, it deviates away from the springs used by the bighorn sheep as quickly as possible."

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

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