REGION: Power-line opponents ask for new report

Anticipating August decision, SDG&E calls request delay tactic

By DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Wednesday, June 4, 2008 3:02 PM PDT ∞

Opponents of San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s $1.5 billion power line say the draft report examining its environmental impacts is flawed and they are asking for a rewrite.

In documents filed recently with a state regulatory agency, the opponents maintained the 7,500-page report is flawed because it contains incomplete information about wildfires and wildlife, and fails to examine a potential power-line expansion along Highway 76.

The request to recirculate the draft comes on the eve of the anticipated release of the report's revised, final version this month and, if granted, could delay the project several months. A decision from the California Public Utilities Commission is anticipated in August.

SDG&E officials, who already have pushed back the project's completion date from 2010 to 2011 because of a delay aren't eager for another one.

Jennifer Briscoe, SDG&E spokeswoman, said, "The draft EIR is the largest of its kind in California history for a transmission line. And an entire chapter was devoted to fires. To suggest that it doesn't adequately cover everything is an insult to those who compiled it. The CPUC has all the information it needs to make an informed decision on the Sunrise Powerlink."

But Diane Conklin, a Ramona activist and spokeswoman for the Mussey Grade Road Alliance, a community group that opposes the power line, said the information contained in the draft about past years' fires is helpful but may not be enough for making an informed decision. Conklin, in a telephone interview Tuesday, said state reports on the October 2007 wildfires due out at the end of the July could provide crucial new information.

Both the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CalFire, and the commission's Consumer Protection and Safety Division are examining the role power lines played.

A preliminary CalFire report indicated three fires were triggered by power lines, though they were much smaller wires than the ones proposed as part of Sunrise Powerlink. The draft environmental report said high-voltage transmission lines rarely spark fires because their sturdy, metal poles are designed to withstand strong wind.

Susan Carothers, a spokeswoman for the Public Utilities Commission in San Francisco, said the regulatory agency's staff is weighing whether to put out another draft report.

The last word

SDG&E is proposing to string 90 miles of 500-kilovolt wires and 60 miles of 230-kilovolt wires along a meandering path from El Centro to Carmel Valley. Because the transmission line would cross Anza-Borrego Desert State Park for 23 miles, a firestorm of opposition has surfaced from environmentalists and recreation enthusiasts.

The utility also faces fierce opposition from thousands who live in the backcountry and suburban communities the wires would cross. SDG&E's preferred route would go through Ranchita, Warner Springs, Santa Ysabel, Ramona and Rancho Penasquitos.

At the same time, the project has been endorsed by some of San Diego County's most prominent local politicians and business leaders, who say the line is needed to keep the region's $168 billion economy humming.

SDG&E says it needs the 1,000 megawatts Sunrise Powerlink would deliver to serve a growing population, plug into developing green power in the Imperial Valley and slash its carbon footprint as California aims to slow global warming. Like the state's other major investor-owned utilities, SDG&E is faced with a requirement to deliver 20 percent of its power from green sources such as the sun and wind by 2010.

To place the project's size into perspective, all of San Diego County uses less than 5,000 megawatts on the hottest summer days.

The utilities commission has been holding hearings and studying the project since early 2006 and it is expected to make a decision in August.

However, the state commission may not have the last word. Should it deny the project, SDG&E would have the option, under federal law, of appealing the decision as early as October to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

That federal commission can overrule state decisions in regions where power-line improvements are deemed to be of national interest. Southern California is one of two such regions in the nation.

An obligation

A rooftop solar proponent, Bill Powers of San Diego was another opponent who requested a rewrite.

Because SDG&E has acknowledged another line could be built later from a substation at Warner Springs to Southern California Edison's grid to the north, Powers said the commission ought to add a section addressing such a link.

"They have an obligation to evaluate the impacts now and not wait until it (the Sunrise Powerlink) is a fait accompli," he said by telephone Tuesday.

Powers said the line would probably run along the north side of Lake Henshaw and follow Highway 76 through the La Jolla Indian Reservation and Pauma Valley.

In a joint filing, the environmental groups Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club requested a new draft because, they say, the original did not adequately quantify the impacts on imperiled animals such as the Peninsular bighorn sheep and Quino checkerspot butterfly, and birds that would fly into the high-voltage wires.

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 745-6611, Ext. 2623, or ddowney@nctimes.com.

First name only. Comments including last names, contact addresses, e-mail addresses or phone numbers will be deleted. Attempts to misrepresent your identity or impersonate any person will not be approved. All comments are screened before they appear online, so please keep them brief. Comments reflect the views of those commenting and not necessarily those of the North County Times or its staff writers. Click here to view additional comment policies.