By Christy Scott
The Alpine Sun
     BOULEVARD — Construction of a $80 million wind turbine project on trust land controlled by the Campo Band of Kumeyaay Indians will get underway in early May with a planned line upgrade. The wind farm is expected to generate up to 50 megawatts of electricity per year for San Diego Gas & Electric.
     “We have a long-term plan to keep the energy flowing in San Diego County for the next 20 years,” said J.C. Thornes of SDGE. “In that plan, it calls for conservation of energy and the production of renewable energy.”
The state has mandated that all power companies in California must obtain 20 percent of all electricity from renewable energy sources.
     “We’re looking at solar, we’re looking at wind, anything that can help to meet that requirement,” Thornes said.
     To support the additional energy that will be produced by the wind farm, SDG&E plans to improve its lines from the site, replacing wires with heavier duty conductor cables. Two lines would be upgraded; one running from the wind farm site to a substation and another running from there into San Diego.
     “We have to improve our transition system to carry additional megawatts,” Thornes said. It will take crews approximately 10 weeks to upgrade nearly seven miles of wire, and during that time residents in the Boulevard area will have their electricity intermittently provided by a generator, he explained at the April 7 meeting of the Boulevard Community Sponsor Group.
     “We’re going to have to take the line out of service and in order for us to keep the electricity flowing and the lights on out here we’re going to have to set up some temporary generators,” Thornes said. “I call them temporary because we’re only going to use them during the day.”
     According to Thornes, the generators would only used to provide electricity from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the latest, Monday through Saturday.
“I haven’t heard anybody say that they oppose the wind farm itself,” Chairwoman Donna Tisdale said to Thornes. “I personally do not oppose it. We’re concerned about what’s going to happen between the wind farm being built and the line getting done.”
     “I’m personally concerned about the power fluctuation caused by the generator,” Tisdale said.
     “What about surges when you power the generator up and down,” asked group member Gary Hoyt. “That’s a long time to be switching on and off twice each day.”
     “We’ve all heard stories about people’s home electronics bursting into flames and frying,” Tisdale said. “No one wants to be replacing all of their electronic equipment.”
     Jim Van Landingham, also of SDG&E said that, if there are any problems, there will be claims personnel on hand to deal with them.
“We are working to get additional controls for switching between the generator and the regular line to decrease surges,” Van Landingham said. “Unless you are actually there to see or hear the generator start, you shouldn’t notice any difference.”
     The wind farm project is scheduled to be finished in November of this year. It is a joint venture between the Campo Band and Superior Renewable Energy of Houston, Texas. Under a 20-year agreement, the tribe will host 25 turbines on the reservation. Each turbine will have three 140-foot blades mounted atop a tubular pole 218 feet tall, the height of a 20-story building.
     The towering turbines will mark the nation’s first commercial wind energy project on Indian land. “It's always good to do something that's environmentally friendly, and this is one of those types of projects,” said tribal Vice Chairman Ralph Goff. “We're looking forward to seeing it actually become a reality.”
     “San Diego County is going to have 50,000 homes powered by green energy from this facility over the next 20 years with zero pollution and no water use,” said Superior Chief Executive John Calaway.
     Superior Energy is evaluating a second wind project on land belonging to the Ewiiaapaayp Band of Kumeyaay Indians. The lines to be upgraded will not have extra capacity to support new wind farms, so similar upgrades will need to be done at that time, Calaway said.
     “This upgrade project is not there to support any other new developments, no landfill, and it’s not there to support an airport,” Thornes said, “It is strictly there to address the concerns coming from the wind farm and the extra energy that will be coming from the wind farm.”
     “We are very much for wind energy in our county,” said K.D. Fuller of the San Diego Sierra Club, “but we want to see it developed right and developed responsibly.”
     According to Fuller, there are three other sites under consideration as possible wind farm sites. There are currently testing and monitoring facilities on 17,617 acres of Bureau of Land Management property in McCain Valley, Shockey Truck Trail, and Table Mountain areas.
     “We are concerned because so far what we’re seeing is testing on public lands,” Fuller said, “but no one is being informed, and it’s all being done without any kind of public comment.”
     Among the concerns of the Sierra Club and other environmental agencies is the potential loss of habitat for endangered species in the area.
     “The reason that these people did not let you guys know about and seek out community input on these sites is that they say it’s not a controversial issue,” Fuller said. “We can let the Bureau of Land Management know that this is important.”
     “We’re not opposing wind energy at all,” Fuller said, “we just feel that these particular sites are not good sites.”

                                E-mail the Editor