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Powerlink approval threatens
Alpine and Back Country areas
By Christy Scott
The Alpine Sun
SAN DIEGO — With the California Public
Utilities Commission’s approval on Dec. 18 of San Diego Gas &
Electric’s Sunrise Powerlink, major areas of Alpine and the Back
Country were threatened with major construction.
The Sunrise Powerlink would cut a swath of 150-foot
tall towers along a 120-mile route through the Back Country and
East County. The route approved by the CPUC brings the
transmission towers along a path through Jacumba, Boulevard,
Campo, Pine Valley and Descanso; as well as being undergrounded
along Alpine Boulevard from West Willows to Peutz Valley.
The CPUC’s President Michael Peevey’s approval proposal
received a 4-1 “yes” vote from the board. Dissenting was
Commissioner Dian Grueneich, because Peevey’s proposal does not
require the line to carry renewable energy, which was the stated
purpose for the line in the first place.
Peevey and other commissioners said that they were
confident that SDG&E would keep oral promises to transit
renewable power on the Sunrise Powerlink and that renewables
will account for a third of the power it delivers by 2020.
The Imperial Valley, where the powerlink will begin,
has potential for geothermal and solar power development and
several tentative geothermal and solar energy projects have been
planned for the area.
SDG&E President and Chief Executive Officer Debra Reed
said the approval will foster growth more of renewable energy in
the Imperial Valley area.
“The CPUC’s approval of the Sunrise Powerlink will help
pave the way toward achieving the state’s aggressive
environmental and energy policy goals,” Reed said. “Reliable
transmission infrastructure is critically needed to reinforce
the region’s electric system and to open up new avenues for
delivering green energy to our customers.”
Reed said the transmission line will have a net benefit
to the utility’s 1.4 million customers by providing more
reliability and flexibility. Ratepayer increases may be
necessary at the outset to recoup the cost of the investment,
but over the long run customers will save money on their bills,
she said.
SDG&E will now finalize engineering and design on the
project, procure equipment and then commence construction on the
120-mile Sunrise Powerlink. With completion expected in 2012,
SDG&E officials claim that the $1.9 billion power line will be
able to deliver as many as 1,000 megawatts of green energy for
about 650,000 households.
Local planning groups in the Back Country have
adamantly refused the Powerlink project, especially proposed
routes that would cut through many small communities and parts
of the Cleveland National Forest. Planners in Boulevard,
Campo-Lake Morena and Alpine have all voted to deny the Sunrise
Powerlink.
“It’s just destroying what we have back here,” said Bev
Esry, chairwoman of the Campo-Lake Morena planning group. “I
think it’s a horrendous decision.”
County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, whose district covers
the majority of the proposed Southern route, agrees with her
constituents.
“This decision is a $2 billion travesty that turns back
the clock on a true, renewable energy future for our region,”
Jacob said. “SDG&E spent thousands upon thousands of dollars to
successfully defeat a requirement that would have guaranteed the
amount of renewable energy on the line. Instead, there are zero
assurances that the line will be used for anything other than
power from dirty, fossil-fuelled plants along the U.S./Mexico
Border.”
“Most distressing, the project’s environmental
documents make it clear that the line will impede firefighting
efforts in our most fire-prone communities. Given what this
region endured during the 2003 and 2007 firestorms, it is
unconscionable that state regulators would gamble on this
extraordinary public safety risk.”
Opponents to Sunrise Powerlink have said they will
challenge the CPUC approval in court as not being economically
viable or needed to supply the area with renewable energy as
well as not being based on solid science.
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