REGION: CPUC opens way for southern power line route

But one of two recommendations asks for project to be killed

By DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Friday, October 31, 2008 7:10 PM PDT ∞

With the unveiling Friday of two potential outcomes for San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s controversial power line, it is likely that the long-distance, high-voltage wires won't be strung through Ramona, Rancho Penasquitos or Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

In a long-awaited recommendation for the $1.5 billion project, a judge for the California Public Utilities Commission urged that the line be rejected outright.

In a second, alternate recommendation, a commissioner suggested colleagues reject SDG&E's preferred 150-mile route through North County and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, and instead authorize a shorter line through the southern part of the county. The 123-mile alternative would avoid the park and follow the Interstate 8 corridor to a substation outside Scripps Ranch.

Either of the two could form the basis for a decision by the five-member commission on the project's fate as early as Dec. 4, said Susan Carothers, a spokeswoman for the regulatory agency in San Francisco. Or, another commissioner could propose a different outcome, and the body could craft a decision around that.

SDG&E officials praised the alternate recommendation of Commissioner Dian Grueneich, reiterating their new support for the southern route.

"The alternate proposed decision issued today is a major milestone for the Sunrise Powerlink," said Michael Niggli, chief operating officer, in a statement.

"After three years of testimony, hearings, public meetings, a formal environmental review ---- and now both a proposed and alternate decision for the project ---- we are hopeful the full commission also will support the Sunrise Powerlink," Niggli said.

Project opponents also found much to cheer about.

"I am hopeful," said James Ward, who lives next to the park east of Julian and is director of Friends of Anza-Borrego State Park, an anti-power-line group that mass-produced opposition bumper stickers. "The CPUC is pretty clear about not having the line through the park. That makes me feel pretty good. But until this thing is dead and buried, I am not going to lift a glass of champagne."

Both the proposed and alternate decisions, which totaled more than 500 pages, found that wires strung from poles as tall as 150 feet would cause an unacceptable level of environmental damage to one of the nation's largest and most pristine state parks.

The proposed decision, penned by Administrative Law Judge Jean Vieth, concluded that the 1,000-megawatt power line is not be needed to shore up a shortage of power in San Diego County until at least 2014. Vieth also found that the project is not needed to convert 20 percent of the utility's electricity supply to green, renewable energy to comply with a state mandate.

And Vieth found that it would provide few benefits for an overwhelming cost.

But, in the alternate decision, Grueneich found that if the state's green energy requirement is raised to 33 percent ---- as the commission has proposed that another agency do as part of California's campaign to curb global warming ---- the line would be needed to meet that higher target.

Under a scenario where 33 percent of electricity is shifted from fossil fuels to green energy, the line would provide $100 million in benefits annually to utility ratepayers.

Grueneich proposed granting approval for a southern route on the condition that SDG&E agree to a "compliance plan" that would hold it accountable for putting green energy, and not natural-gas power, on the wires.

Michael Shames, executive director for the Utility Consumers' Action Network, a San Diego advocacy group that opposes the project, has been arguing the line is not needed for several years, or for meeting the existing green energy law.

"There's no question they pulled back the curtains and they saw that the wizard was just a balloon salesman," Shames said.

Shames also suggested that SDG&E would prefer neither recommendation.

"My guess is SDG&E is going to be shopping around for other commissioners to write additional alternatives," he said.

Not all opponents were happy.

Diane Conklin, a Ramona activist who has been supplying information about the fire threat posed by power lines to the commission, said the best solution would be to string no wires at all, but to build an array of solar and wind power projects in metropolitan San Diego.

"We hope the commission will realize that the southern route, as SDG&E agreed up until recently, is not a good choice," Conklin said. "The better choice is local, clean, renewable energy in San Diego for San Diego."

The commission recommendation is the latest in a series of missteps by and blows to the utility.

The company's initial environmental impact report for Sunrise was deemed insufficient, requiring SDG&E to redo the document by investing thousands of additional work hours and dollars.

The utility also has been blamed for its part in starting the deadly 2007 Witch Creek fire in Ramona, as well as the Rice fire, which swept through Fallbrook around the same time. The two fires destroyed more than 1,300 homes and killed two people. At nearly 200,000 acres, the Witch Creek blaze was the fourth-largest wildfire in state history.

In response, SDG&E officials this fall proposed turning off power to as many as 45,000 backcountry homes and businesses whenever extreme fire conditions existed. That prompted an uproar from the people who would have been affected, leading the utility this week to announce it was shelving the idea for now but will ask state regulators to consider allowing the practice starting next year.

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