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Community Council takes on Alpine SRPL
By Susan Hogoboom
The Alpine Sun
ALPINE — San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E)
project managers, Jonathan Woldermariam and Alan Colton gave a
run-down of the status and benefits of the proposed Sunrise
Powerlink project and the occurrences leading up to its
construction, to a group of invited local businesspeople,
representatives and residents at a meeting held last Tuesday,
Nov. 10.
Amongst invitees attending were Lisa Haws, a Viejas
Tribal government member; Pat Cannon, Alpine Mountain Empire
Chamber of Commerce CEO; Peggy Easterling, from the Alpine
Design Review Board; Chief Bill Paskle, Alpine Fire Prevention
District; Mary Kay Borchard, Co-Chair of the Alpine
Revitalization Committee’s Community Development Subcommittee;
George Barnett of the Alpine Planning Group; and an observer
from the Grossmont Union High School District. There were also
12 SDG&E employees on hand, ranging from public relations staff
to environmentalists and engineers. The project engineer for the
Alpine link, however, was absent due to illness.
This meeting, the first of the Alpine Community
Council, an effort by SDG&E to involve local interests, was, for
the most part, an update on the status of the proposed
powerlink’s construction. Woldermariam and Colton mainly
followed the talking points outlined in binders received by each
participant but repeatedly emphasized the desire to work with
private homeowners and business owners and reiterated that they
are “hoping to leave Alpine better than they found it.”
“We proactively established the Alpine Community
Council as a way to work with the community and welcome
receiving a balance of views on the project from planning
council members to council officials and from business leaders
to residents,” wrote Sempra Energy Public Relations Manager,
Jennifer Briscoe in an e-mail to The Alpine Sun. “We definitely
didn’t want to have the project be approved and then not have an
opportunity to continue the interaction with communities along
the route.”
The $1.8 billion, 120-mile electric transmission line,
that would have the capability of transmitting 1,000 megawatts
of electricity, is slated for construction to begin in 2010 and
to be in service by 2012. It would run from the Imperial Valley
substation through Jacumba, Boulevard, Campo, Descanso, Alpine,
and Lakeside and end at the Sycamore Canyon Substation in
Scripp’s Ranch.
Experts are carrying out technical, biological, and cultural
resource surveys and studies; appraising and purchasing
property; and analyzing ground for structure foundations.
Mitigation activities have begun.
The route is planned to travel through 50 miles of U.S.
Bureau of Land Management (BLM) property, 20 miles of U.S.
Forest Service (USFS) lands, 15 miles of other jurisdictional
lands, and through 35 miles of private properties. The powerlink
would not run through the Campo Indian Reservation, as tribal
government did not give permission for the link to run through
its property.
SDG&E officials are still waiting for a record of decision from
the USFS, which Briscoe says is expected anytime between now and
the first quarter of next year.
SRPL was approved by the California Public Utilities
Commission (CPUC) in December 2008 and by the BLM in January
2009. Environmental studies have been completed and are reflected
in a 11,000-page document.
More than $70 million have been spent thus far on
materials for construction of SRPL. These materials include steel
and cable. SDG&E also has plans to construct a 500-kilovolt East
County Substation in Jacumba; to rebuild and update an existing
substation, located in Boulevard; and to connect the two
substations with a new 139-kilovolt transmission line.
The company has plans to add new communications
equipment at the existing facility. However, according to
Briscoe, this is all contingent upon CPUC approval.
Paskle expressed concern regarding the possible
increase in emergency response time due to construction that
would occur on Alpine Boulevard during SRPL’s underground phase
of construction. SDG&E representatives will be working with
emergency personnel and with representatives from the new high
school.
Barnett agreed that SRPL’s construction would disrupt
traffic flow. “It’s the only road for 20,000 people,” he said.
"The APG would like you to consider the impact," Barnett
told SDG&E reps. He referred to such potential impact as
“extremely harmful.”
Barnett told The Alpine Sun via e-mail after the
meeting, that he “was disappointed in all areas” and that “the
project is not ready to proceed.”
He said he would forward his thoughts and comments to
the San Diego County Board of Supervisors’ office and to the
Department of Planning and Land Use and the Department of Public
Works so these opinions can be considered before Supervisor
Jacob’s Dec. 1 policy planning meeting with county officials.
Barnett also said that he is concerned about the
apparent lack of contact that SDG&E personnel have had with the
AFPD, the Alpine Sheriff’s Station, the Alpine Union School
District and Grossmont Union High School District regarding
affected bus routes, CalFire, Viejas and Sycuan Fire.
Barnett sees the proposed construction as posing a
problem to local property owners around the boulevard. Through
Barnett’s research, he said he discovered roughly 250 Alpine
property owners whose only ingress/egress is via Alpine
Boulevard between Tavern Road and South Grade Road alone.
The Alpine Community Council will be meeting again in
future months to continue discussions and input on the Alpine
portion of the proposed Sunrise Powerlink project.
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