DesertBlog

Bride of Sunrise Powerlink in the Offing?

Still from “Bride of Frankenstein.” Even Dr. Frankenstein finished creating his first monster before going on to his next mad idea. 

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, SDG&E has now raised the possibility that two massive transmission lines could traverse Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, doubly ruining the wilderness values of this desert landscape forever.

In its direct testimony for the ongoing Phase 2 Evidentiary Hearings on the Sunrise Powerlink, SDG&E says that there’s a possibility that the state could increase renewable energy mandates from the current 20% to 33% or even 50% to fight global warming. The company contends that this move would in turn necessitate an additional power line paralleling Sunrise through the park and through backcountry communities such as Ranchita. In arguing for the company’s preferred northern alignment, the document says, “an additional high transmission line beyond Sunrise could be required to physically deliver these resources.” If the northern alignment through the park were chosen, then the additional line could be “co-located” with Sunrise (and we thought adjacent transmission lines were supposed to decrease reliability!).

The company has done backflips to shoe-horn its proposed Sunrise line into the existing right of way through Anza-Borrego. By staying in the right of way, the proposed line will avoid state wilderness areas and, the company hopes, a contentious hearing before the State Parks Commission. Is there a chance this new line would also avoid the wilderness? Our guess is, “not likely.” But at that point, the company’s argument would be: “There’s already a large power line there. What difference does one more make?” So the Sunrise Powerlink, in addition to being a wasteful, destructive and expensive boondoggle, is a foot in the door to allowing “de-designation” of state wilderness areas, along with even more devastation. It’s an odd kind of Trojan horse, one that nobody wants in the first place.

This new development makes it even more important that we have a large turnout at the upcoming Public Utilities Commission hearings on the afternoon and evening of May 12 in Borrego Springs. Everyone who cares about the development of true green energy alternatives, or about protecting parks and backcountry landscapes, should be there to make your voices heard. (More details to come.)

Oh, and about that right of way through Anza-Borrego: The hearings in San Francisco today revealed that SDG&E doesn’t even control that right of way — BLM and the Imperial Irrigation District do.

To read SDG&E’s statements on this additional line for yourself, go to page 6.26 of this document (warning: 7 MB!) or check the screen shot below. (Thanks to the Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity for digging this tidbit out of SDG&E’s testimony and including it in their comments on the Draft EIR.)