Local groups
file appeal
over Sunrise Powerlink project
By Neal Putnam
The Alpine Sun
BOULEVARD — An appeal to the U.S. Department of the Interior
over its Bureau of Land Management (BLM) approval of San Diego
Gas & Electric’s Sunrise Powerlink transmission project was
filed recently by three local organizations in San Diego County.
The appeal notice to the Interior Board of Land Appeals is the
first step to a court appeal.
It shows that the BLM failed to adequately conduct
environmental reviews and therefore BLM’s decision to approve
the project should be reviewed. The BLM’s Record of Decision on
January 20, 2009 approved the controversial 150-mile
transmission line that will bulldoze its way through communities
and sensitive lands in Imperial and San Diego Counties.
Appellants Backcountry Against the Dump, Inc., a
grassroots organization located in Boulevard, Calif., The
Protect Our Communities Foundation (POC) based in Santa Ysabel,
and the East County Community Action Coalition (ECCAC), based in
Lakeside, also requested a stay of action by the BLM on
construction of the power line project until the appeal has been
resolved. Stephan C. Volker of the Volker Law Offices of
Oakland, CA filed the appeal and stay.
“We are asking the federal government to do what they
should have done to begin with,” said backcountry activist and
BAD principal Donna Tisdale of Boulevard, who is also named in
the appeal notice. “The BLM violated so many laws in this rush
to approve SDG&E’s project it makes your head spin,” she said.
The appeal states that the National Environmental Policy Act,
Federal Land Policy Management Act, Endangered Species Act,
National Historic Preservation Act and the Administrative
Procedures Act were all ignored by the BLM in their
decision-making process on the giant transmission project.
“We are not going to stand by while corporate entities
profit by destroying our communities and collective
environment,” Tisdale said. “We will not be a rural sacrifice
area to any and all bad projects that come down the pike just
because investors want to cash in on a national energy policy
that is headed in the wrong direction and hasn’t been thoroughly
vetted. Everyone needs take a hard look at what extent of
cumulative damage will be allowed, tolerated, or waived in the
name of renewable energy that, in fact, destroys more than it
delivers. There are better, cheaper ways to do generate
renewable energy near the point of use.”
The power line, approved by the California Public
Utilities Commission last December, against the advice of the
Assigned Administrative Law Judge and the Commission’s
environmental report, will cost California ratepayers at least
$1.9 billion. SDG&E refused to agree to formally condition the
line for renewables in the CPUC proceedings, Tisdale said,
pointing out that the company actually stated that they would
jettison the project if the state forced the issue.
She also pointed to the recent nomination of former SDG&E/Sempra
Energy transmission lobbyist David Hayes to become No. 2 man at
the Department of the Interior as a sign of the times, saying
that the Interior Department needs to demonstrate it is willing
and able to enforce federal environmental laws rather than
waiving them for faux green projects. Sempra Energy is the
parent company of SDG&E.
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