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This is our old Sunrise Powerlink page.
For current information, go to our
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Send a letter to the editor
Comment on the Draft EIR
Recent news coverage has focused on the impact the Sunrise Powerlink will have on Anza-Borrego Desert State Park’s namesake species. Good coverage in the
North County Times .
This coverage is based not just on quotes from those of us in the environmental community, but on the CPUC’s own
Environmental Impact Report, which lists many less environmentally damaging alternatives to the Sunrise Powerlink.
While the environmental consequences of the Powerlink are now clear, the CPUC will still decide whether the supposed benefits of the Powerlink outweigh its environmental costs. We need to let them know that Californians will not accept threats to bighorn sheep, degradation of wilderness values, and lasting scars on our state parks. There are many better ways to bring sustainable energy to San Diego.
The hearings are over, and they were a great success! Powerlink opponents packed meeting rooms from Borrego Springs to downtown San Diego. The efforts of the chamber’s fake grassroots group paled by comparison. Kelly Fuller has posted a great 4-minute news clip of the Borrego Springs hearing on her blog.
There are two more actions you can take:
- Send a written comment to the CPUC (even if you spoke at one of the hearings). Go HERE for complete details. Don’t be overwhelmed by the number comments listed. We offer a smorgasboard of choices for you to choose from, arranged from simple to technical. Just pick one or two that you like, and make sure to include your personal reasons for opposing the Sunrise Powerlink. Please copy us on these letters at connect AT dpcinc DOT org.
- Send a letter to the editor. The North County Times and the Union-Tribune had commentaries and editorials supporting the Sunrise Powerlink in recent days. Send a letter to the editor of the NC Times and/or the U-T. Make sure to include your name, address and phone number, and keep it under 200 words. Please DON’T cc us on your letter to the editor, but if you want to send it separately to us at connect AT dpcinc DOT org, that’s great.
Suggested points to make in your letters to the editor:
- We can meet our energy needs with clean, reliable, locally produced power. We don’t need the Sunrise Powerlink. We need San Diego Smart Energy 2020!
- Once we start using state parks, wilderness, and open space areas for infrastructure, we will soon have no open space, wilderness or parks left.
- Until the 1980s, San Diego produced most of its own power. Why not now? To push the impacts of San Diego’s growing power needs onto distant communities and public lands is the height of NIMBYism.
- As the draft EIR points out on page ES-25, the Sunrise Powerlink would actually create more greenhouse gas emissions than it would save, even if it carried 100% renewable energy. If using renewables doesn’t reduce global warming, what’s the point?
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The San Diego Smart Energy Solutions Campaign released its long-awaited alternative plan to the Sunrise Powerlink on Thursday, October 18. San Diego Smart Energy 2020, authored by professional engineer Bill Powers, brings together a variety of approaches to balancing San Diego's energy supply/demand equation. Rather than putting all of San Diego's eggs in one basket, as SDG&E would have the city do, the report recommends a variety of methods to not only produce clean power within San Diego County but also to conserve the existing energy supply. These include an ambitious solar incentive program aimed mainly at businesses, a type of generation known as "combined heat and power," simple energy efficiency measures, and upgrades to our in-county distribution system.
By focusing on in-basin generation and conservation, the plan avoids the need for long-distance transmission lines across our deserts and backcountry. It also costs far less than SDG&E/Sempra's overall energy plan for our region, and achieves a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, far better than SDG&E's plan.
This fall's destructive wildfires demonstrated in dramatic fashion the risks involved with transporting power over long distances, as San Diego suffered not only the tragic loss of homes and lives, but also a fire-induced energy crisis. While SDG&E wants us to believe that the Sunrise Powerlink would have prevented this power emergency, the truth is that the proposed line would have made absolutely no difference to the energy supply. The reason: much of its route between Santa Ysabel and Ramona had burned, making it likely that this line would also have been taken out of service. (An identical situation occurred during the firestorms of 2003.)
The lesson: with increasing temperatures and dry conditions making catastrophic wildfires more likely, it is irresponsible to rely on distant sources for a large portion of San Diego's power needs, as SDG&E would have us do.
You can read an executive summary of the report
here, or the full report (a very large file)
here.
To learn more about Smart Energy Solutions 2020 and find out how you can help with the Smart Energy Solutions Campaign, go to www.sdsmartenergy.org.
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 Over two weeks in July, SDG&E ‘fessed up to many of the charges made by its critics, energy experts, and public agencies, effectively bringing the project review process for the misguided Sunrise Powerlink to a screeching halt. The company has claimed that this 150-mile transmission line -- proposed to run through Imperial County desert, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and rural communities of San Diego -- would save customers money, provide green energy, and improve reliability. All three of these claims have been convincingly undermined by project opponents, and now by the company’s own admission.
Key admissions by the company during hearings before the California Public Utilities Commission:
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The Sunrise Powerlink will save customers far less than the company estimated, due to errors in the company’s figures (and the Utility Consumers Action Network, which discovered these errors, has found even more errors that mean the line will cost consumers MORE, not less)
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Vice President Jim Avery admitted that the Powerlink would sometimes carry dirty power, not the green, clean power the company had promised
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Savings estimates were based on the Sunrise Powerlink carrying power from coal-fired power plants in the Southwest
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Undisclosed until now, the company revealed that a new substation would be required to link the power line to proposed wind energy facilities, a piece of the project that has not undergone environmental review
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The company admitted that the Sunrise Powerlink is just one part of a larger project formerly known as the “Full Loop” to build transmission lines all the way to Los Angeles
The final admission was perhaps most damaging. California law prevents large projects from being broken into smaller pieces in order to make approval easier. Because none of the impacts associated with this larger project had been considered in the environmental review that is already under way, the California Public Utilities Commission delayed release of an Environmental Impact Report for six months, and also called off further hearings that were supposed to resume at the end of July. According to the CPUC, this makes it unlikely that the line can be built by the company’s target date of 2010.
In other news, the California Independent System Operator (the public agency that controls the supply and distribution of power supplied by utility corporations such as SDG&E) now claims that consumers will save money if the Sunrise Powerlink is not built until 2013 to 2015, undermining SDG&E’s claims that San Diego will face blackouts if the line is not built by 2010.
So, conservationists seem to have won this inning of a long ballgame. Expect public hearings to resume in the fall. Check back here for more updates.
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 The Division of Ratepayer Advocates, a division of the California Public Utilities Commission that looks out for the needs of the state’s utility consumers, has determined that we do not need the Sunrise Powerlink. Energy experts from the U.S. and Canada examined San Diego’s energy needs and determined that the metropolitan area can do just fine without this massive and destructive energy project. In fact, SDG&E has already planned enough capacity through peaker plants and demand reduction measures that San Diego’s energy needs are assured through 2015. The report also shows that the Powerlink would cost more than the benefits it could provide. Read coverage of the report in the U-T and North County Times. The Utility Consumers Action Network came out with its own report on June 1, that also shows the Powerlink is unnecessary. And this is just one of several reports and other Powerlink-related news – to keep up with all the Sunrise Powerlink news check Kelly Fuller’s excellent blog.
While this is good news, the pro-powerlink side has had its way in the opinion pages of our local media, especially the Union-Tribune (see “Region in need of electrical upgrade”). It’s time to get those typewriters tapping and keyboards clacking and send letters to the editor. Please send brief (100-150 words), respectful letters making the following points (pick one or two):
- The Sunrise Powerlink does not add up in pure dollars and cents
- It won’t save ratepayers money
- $1.3 billion could be better invested in LOCAL solar and other innovative technologies
- According to the DRA report, SDG&E can meet the state’s renewable energy mandates without the powerlink
- San Diego can meet its own energy needs without destroying our wilderness and rural backcountry
- While a gigantic solar facility is contemplated for the Imperial Valley, its technology is highly speculative and behind schedule in development, and it would cover 7,000 acres of pristine desert. Why not instead use proven solar panel technology on the millions of roofs and parking lots in urban areas?
- SDG&E should pay solar panel users for EVERY kilowatt they produce, as PG&E and other utilities do
- Sempra/SDG&E should stop lobbying against renewable energy legislation and start promoting a truly green, renewable energy future for San Diego
Please keep your letters positive, and DON’T include comments slamming SDG&E for its profit motive or other alleged (or proven) villainy.
UPDATE: We’ve seen a couple of strong letters promoting local solar power as an alternative to the Powerlink in the Union-Tribune (last on the page) and the North County Times (second one down from top), plus a nice opinion piece by NCTimes columnist Jim Trageser. We’ve also seen disinformation from SDG&E, pushing its line that THE SUN DOESN’T SHINE ON SAN DIEGO and the only way to get renewable energy here is to gut our wilderness parks and rural open space with a massive powerline. This is far from the truth. The experts from the Division of Ratepayer Advocates and UCAN agree that San Diego can use cheaper, less environmentally damaging alternatives to ensure a steady supply of affordable – and increasingly renewable – power. Let’s keep those letters coming! SDG&E will come out with its rebuttal to UCAN’s and other groups’ Public Utilities Commission testimony on June 15. That will be another opportunity for letters to the editor. Look for an update here.
Send your letters, with your name, address, and daytime telephone number, to:
The San Diego Union-Tribune, Letters Editor, P.O. Box 120191, San Diego, CA 92112-0191; e-mail: letters@uniontrib.com;
North County Times, 207 E. Pennsylvania Ave., Escondido, CA 92025; e-mail: letters@nctimes.com
And please send a copy to: connect AT dpcinc DOT org.
Read Previous Sunrise Powerlink Alerts here.
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Is this what we want in our desert parks? (Photo by SDG&E) |
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On February 8, a crowd of 500 enthusiastic supporters of desert landscapes appeared at the California Parks and Recreation Commission special meeting in Borrego Springs to voice strong opposition to SDG&E’s proposed Sunrise Powerlink. Many individuals, as well as representatives of the Desert Protective Council, California Wilderness Coalition, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Wilderness Society, and Pacific Crest Trail Association, gave impassioned speeches against the power line. While this turnout was a great success, the next steps are even more important: communicating with both appointed and elected officials. After reading this background information, we hope you’ll take the time to write a short note expressing your opposition to this devastating proposal.
As previously reported on this website and in our newsletter, El Paisano, SDG&E’s proposed Sunrise Powerlink presents one of the gravest threats in years to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, as well as a large swath of public desert lands and San Diego’s rural backcountry. Yet an even more dangerous result lurks within this flawed power proposal: the spectre of a first-ever “de-designation” of wilderness for purposes of development. Such a precedent-setting move should alarm wilderness enthusiasts everywhere. This precedent could be just what wilderness opponents have been hoping for.
According to Ryan Henson of the California Wilderness Coalition, “To my knowledge, never in American history has either state or federal wilderness been de-designated in order to allow development. Shockingly, this is precisely what is being considered for wilderness in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park to allow the proposed Sunrise Powerlink to be built!” What's at stake is far more than the roughly 75 acres of state-designated wilderness that would be impacted by this proposal to provide a second transmission line from Imperial County to San Diego. Wilderness, both state and federal, was meant to be preserved “in perpetuity.” If a simple request to the state’s Park and Rec Commission is enough to remove this legislative protection, then no wilderness in the country is safe from development or conversion to other uses.
In our view, no level of infrastructure need justifies ruining views in California's flagship park or threatening the sanctity of wilderness designation. But worse, according to the Utility Consumers' Action Network (UCAN), the Sunrise Powerlink is unnecessary for San Diego’s power needs. While the line is touted as providing access for San Diego to clean, renewable energy in Imperial County, the solar technology they propose to link to is still in the experimental stage, and would itself cover 7,000 acres in Imperial County, possibly pristine desert. Would a company such as SDG&E risk over a billion dollars to provide access to such a speculative project? More likely is that the company wants a second link to power plants in Mexico, which do not meet California’s air quality standards and which further sully the already polluted air in Imperial County.
You can find out more about the Sunrise Powerlink here, here, here and here.
Saturday April 14th is STOP THE POWERLINK DAY, featuring Denis Trafecanty’s 50-mile Benefit Run to Stop the Powerlink, parties at Java Iguana in Borrego Springs and Menghini Winery in Julian, and more. For complete details, see Kelly Fuller’s Energy and Nature page or a flyer about the benefit run.
PLEASE WRITE A SHORT LETTER TO THE INDIVIDUALS LISTED BELOW TODAY!
Here are some suggested points to make in your comments:
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The Sunrise Powerlink is unnecessary from an energy supply standpoint
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It will rob future generations of their right to enjoy pristine desert and mountain parklands, which were intended to be preserved “in perpetuity”
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It will degrade San Diego and Imperial counties’ backcountry landscapes, both private and public
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Alternatives that focus on local generation and conservation are better options, because they will meet San Diego’s energy needs while protecting private property and avoiding harm to rural lands and wilderness
Billie Blanchard, Project Manager
California Public Utilities Commission
505 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco, CA 94102
fax: 415 703 2200
email: bcb@cpuc.ca.gov
(ask to be notified when the Draft EIR is circulated)
SDGE Sunrise Powerlink
Attn: Jim Avery, Senior Vice President
8330 Century Park Ct., CP31D, San Diego, CA 92123
Bobby Shriver, Chair
CA State Park and Recreation Commission
P.O. Box 942896, Sacramento, CA 94296-0001
Lnastro@parks.ca.gov
California State Senator Christine Kehoe
2445 Fifth Ave, Suite 200, San Diego, CA 92103
Senator.kehoe@sen.ca.gov
California State Senator Denise Moreno Ducheny
637 Third Ave., Suite C, Chula Vista, CA 91910
Senator.ducheny@sen.ca.gov
Your own state and federal elected officials
Find out who they are at these websites:
http://192.234.213.69/amapsearch/framepage.asp
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
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UPDATED!
