TRAGESER: Don't soil paradise for energy

By JIM TRAGESER - STAFF WRITER | Sunday, June 29, 2008 12:28 AM PDT ∞

The local utility insists it needs to run high-power lines through the desert and mountains; the White House argues that we need to begin drilling oil wells off our local coast.

Going green is the argument for the first; energy independence for the other.

But what's the point of living in paradise if we're going to make it look like north Jersey or the Chicago stockyards?

One of the benefits of living in San Diego County for the past few generations has been that, unlike Los Angeles, we never paved over paradise. While parts of the L.A. basin were as industrialized as any swath of the Eastern Seaboard, San Diego always managed to blend development with maintaining open space.

Although we locals like to pat ourselves on the back for being better people than those Angelenos when it comes to modern planning, the reality is that San Diego's lower-impact pattern of development has been more an accident of history and geography than foresight or wisdom.

The fact is that Los Angeles is where the money in Southern California was early last century ---- so, quite simply, it was developed first and fastest. And where the L.A. basin is largely flat, lending itself to unbroken development, San Diego County is covered with hills and canyons: a sort of nature-imposed set of greenbelts throughout our communities.

Still, whatever the reasons, the reality remains that San Diego County today is a very nice place to live because we don't have huge industrial zones marring the landscape. We have green hills and open waters, and those things ---- which may not show up on a ledger ---- make this a better place to live than places that have surrendered them in the name of profit.

Or, in the case of the proposed SDG&E high power lines, a short cut or even abandonment of true eco-friendly energy.

And in the case of the proposed off-shore oil rigs, a short-term fix that will find us in the same predicament of oil shortages in another generation when that oil is used up.

We should be very hesitant to surrender our back country and local waters to arguments of needed energy, particularly when they're presented in terms of an either/or dichotomy. Such forced choices tend to be false, presented by people with ulterior motives.

SDG&E is refusing to even consider the approach being tried in ---- of all places, Los Angeles ---- to put solar panels on every roof in order to generate eco-friendly energy where it's used. Instead, SDG&E's parent company Sempra is insisting we have to run power lines through some of the last unspoiled lands in the county.

And the administration's argument for drilling off our local coast is equally iffy: With China and India roughly doubling their oil consumption every year or so, and with the untapped oil reserves off our local coast just a drop in the global bucket, cluttering up our coast with derricks and the resulting risk of oil spills won't even accomplish the stated goal of lowering oil prices. It will only put off the very inevitable day, coming soon, when we have to figure out how to live without oil.

It would be nice to face that challenge while still living in a place that could fairly be called paradise.

Contact staff writer Jim Trageser at (760) 740-5408 or jtrageser@nctimes.com.

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