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Residents and protesters
show at Sunrise open house
By Christy Scott
The Alpine Sun
ALPINE — More than 100 residents from
Alpine and surrounding areas filed through the Alpine Community
Center last Tuesday evening, March 10, where dozens of
representatives from San Diego Gas & Electric were on hand to
answer questions about the utility’s proposed Sunrise Powerlink
transmission line. Dozens of protesters and Sunrise Powerlink
opponents also attended the open house event.
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| Top,
SDG&E reps explain details of the Powerlink to
residents who live along the proposed route. Above,
this trench, located in San Jose, is the same as
those that will be constructed along Alpine
Boulevard. Below, Sherie Hubble shows off her sign,
and the group of protesters outside the community
center, who carried signs, handed out literature and
voiced concerns about the planned placement of
Sunrise Powerlink conduit towers in the Back
Country. |
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Children and parents staged a protest rally outside, holding
signs that read “Class 1 Fire Risk” and “Save the Cleveland
National Forest,” dozens of residents voiced opposition to
230-kv lines slated to run through the heart of Alpine. Approved
by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in
December, Sunrise Powerlink is slated to include a $92-million
section of undergrounded lines along a two-mile stretch of
Alpine Boulevard, from Willows Road to Peutz Valley.
Many residents at the open house voiced concerns about
the impact of the road construction on Alpine Boulevard
businesses, Alpine Elementary School and the community center
itself. George Barnett, a retired engineer and member of the
Alpine Planning Group, echoed concerns from local business
owners that the placement of underground powerlines along the
main street in Alpine will disrupt traffic and hurt business for
local merchants.
SDG&E spokesman Jonathan Woldermariam clarified that
the lines through Alpine will be 230kv, not 500kv as some
residents believed. The lines will step down from 500 to 230kv
at the Japatul substation.
“The trench that needs to be in place for these lines
isn’t much bigger than any regular work that we might be doing
around the county — about 3 feet wide by 7 feet deep,”
Woldermariam said. “Construction will be done in 100-feet
sections, so that large areas of the road aren’t blocked.”
The 3- by 7-foot trenches would run on both sides of
Alpine Boulevard. In areas where roads, driveways or business
parking lots need to be accessed workers will place metal plates
over trench openings to ensure that they are not blocked.
Before the powerlink lines reach east Alpine, the
transmission lines will run along a 100-mile route, planting
125-foot tall conduit towers along a path that would skirt
Cleveland National Forest; but travel right through Boulevard,
Campo, Potrero, north through Descanso and into Alpine and
Lakeside.
Several residents from the Carveacre and Japatul areas
in east Alpine attended the open house to voice their opposition
and answer questions of their own. With a table set up outside,
the majority of visitors stopped to talk to residents from the
newly formed East County Community Action Coalition (ECCAC) and
Save El Monte Valley.
Sherie Hubble, who lives near Gaskill Peak in Carveacre
carried a sign which read, “Senseless Destruction of a Green
Environment.”
“This is right in my backyard, what I see when I look
outside every day, and they’re just going to destroy this
beautiful area,” she said about SDG&E’s plans to place a tower
on the rocky hill in Carveacre.
Tara Jordan, who lives in the South Japatul area raised
concerns about the need for the line at all.
“Their own studies show that this line isn’t needed —
that there’s a better way to generate this power,” she said.
Upon reviewing the Sunrise Powerlink EIR the CPUC’s report
identified the Environmentally Superior Alternative as “New
in-area all-source generation.”
Outside the community center, Thomas and Karen
MacKinnon, of Carveacre, along with their children, carried
signs and voiced their concerns about the health effects to
residents who will soon be living near the giant electric
conduits.
“We don’t know what the effects could be. There are
studies about cancer levels in people who have lived near these
towers,” said Karen. “Our family, our kids, live right there.”
Several residents told SDG&E officials the lines in
Back Country areas should be placed underground, as they will be
through Alpine. According to Woldemariam, the technology to
underground 500kV lines over long distances doesn’t exist, which
is why the line drops to 230kV in Japatul.
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