DesertBlog

Happy Birthday, John Muir!

 In honor of the day, here’s a bit from “Two Little Feet” by Greg Brown:

 I got two little feet to get me ‘cross the mountain

two little feet to carry me away into the woods

Two little feet, a big mountain, and a

cloud comin’ down cloud comin’ down cloud comin’ down

….

John Muir walked away into the mountains

in his old overcoat, a crust of bread in his pocket

we have no knowledge and so we have stuff and

stuff with no knowledge is never enough to get you there

it just won’t get you there

      – Greg Brown, “Two Little Feet”

San Diego Earth Day Report

Groups fighting the Sunrise Powerlink and promoting greener energy options were all over Sunday’s Earth Day celebration in San Diego’s Balboa Park.

On my way to the Friends of Rose Canyon booth (where we spread the word about another “unnecessary infrastructure in parks” issue), I passed the Communities United for Sensible Power booth, where Carolyn Morrow was selling tickets to Ranchita Rocks 2, which will be held September 12, 13, & 14 this year. The earlier you buy your tickets, the cheaper they’ll be. Let’s hope the Sunrise Powerlink is just a bad memory by then!

Later, on my way down to the Sun Stage for lunch, I stopped at the Donate-A-Pack Foundation booth. Turns out the program is run by the good folks at Adventure 16, and they can bring new life to even the most ancient pack. Then they donate it to outdoor education groups like Outward Bound, Big City Mountaineers, Sierra Club Inner City Outings, and more. Not only were they promoting this good work, they also were helping to spread the word about the harm the Sunrise Powerlink will do to San Diego’s backcountry, where many of their customers recreate.

A blues-rock band – didn’t catch their name – was playing at the Sun Stage, and also promoting the upcoming Ranchita Rocks festival. (Kathleen Beck’s group had played earlier, but my FRC duties kept me from getting to that one. Her song “Wires” should become our campaign’s anthem.)

At the San Diego Smart Energy Solutions booth, organizer Micah Mitrosky, the Sierra Club’s Richard Miller, and their band of volunteers had already given away all of their compact fluorescent bulbs, were just about out of Polaroid film, and had collected 300 comment cards against the Powerlink that will be turned in at the May 12 CPUC hearing. The pitch to passersby was, “Get your photo taken with our Pro-Smart Energy, Anti-Sunrise Powerlink sign, attach it to a comment card and write your personal message, and get a free CFL.” Even after the bulbs were gone, we got another 50 to 100 comment cards in the next two hours, bringing the total for the day to about 400, most with pictures proving a real person is behind the comment. Way to go Micah, Richard, and all the volunteers!

Another volunteer at the booth was Bob Baran, whose Anza-Borrego.net not only has great information on hiking and wheeling trips in Anza-Borrego, but also a lot of Sunrise Powerlink info. Turns out Bob is also our second registered user of DesertBlog. Welcome, Bob!

There were probably more groups at Earth Day with Sunrise Powerlink info that I missed. (The SDG&E booth was noticeably absent of any SPL propaganda. It was all energy efficiency and conservation. Good job, SDG&E, let’s have more of that, and less of the towering steel structures.)

Yesterday’s event jammed traffic all around Balboa Park. Let’s hope we have a traffic jam half that size out in Borrego on May 12.

Sunrise Powerlink Quick Hits

Stirling Solar gets a boost: Several papers report today that Stirling Energy Systems has acquired funding from an Irish toll road company (a toll road company — sort of makes you feel warm all over, doesn’t it?). Oh, and they’ve got a cute new name for their dishes: “SunCatcher”. Good for Stirling, which should be bringing us solar power sometime around 2020 (according to energy expert Barry Butler and his testimony last summer).

In the U-T article, one executive made the unsupported claim that the dishes provide power at 1/5th the cost of solar panels. Good thing the California Energy Commission has already given us an objective cost estimate for Stirling: $6 per watt plus “shipping and handling” (as compared to the $3.85 per watt SoCal Edison claims for its planned solar panel installation, no shipping required). Who are you going to believe?

The bottom line: solar panels cost half as much as solar dishes in the desert — and they work!

One Sunrise proponent’s take on the ongoing Phase 2 hearings in San Francisco: Jesus Arredondo has been providing hour-by-hour accounts on some days of the hearings on his pro-Powerlink “It’s the Infrastructure, Stupid” blog. (I like to call it the “It’s the STUPID Infrastructure” blog.) On Tuesday, he seemed a little concerned with Administrative Law Judge Steven Weissman’s attitude toward the Powerlink, and his questioning of a witness about whether “traditional or cultural areas” could be developed. Arredondo wrote:

“The answer was yes [cultural areas can be developed], if specific mitigation can be identified. The ALJ did not let go of the issue very swiftly, which makes me wonder if he has a disposition to a desired or expected answer… this is important as it might be a telling view of the ALJ’s thinking.”

No, we don’t think Weissman is biased against the Powerlink, just objectively weighing its merits and many demerits. And Weissman’s scheduling of the additional hearings May 12 in Borrego Springs also seems like a positive sign…

Updating Wednesday’s post on “Bride of Sunrise”: Simultaneous with our post, SDG&E officials were clarifying the exact location of their contemplated second major transmission line, which was left wide open in their earlier statements. At the ongoing CPUC hearings in San Francisco on Wednesday, the company revealed that this potential second power line would run from Warner Springs to Scripps Ranch on a path “co-located” with their currently proposed Sunrise Powerlink. So, instead of imagining twin massive power lines running all the way from Imperial County through Anza-Borrego and into San Diego, just imagine those twin lines running through Santa Ysabel and other backcountry communities….

What remains unclear is exactly how the 700 to 1000 megawatts of additional renewable power would arrive at Warner Springs, if not via an additional transmission line from Imperial County. We’ll keep you posted as we get more info.

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.)

New Algodones/Imperial Sand Dunes Planning Process

The Algodones Dunes, photo by Andrew Harvey.

The beautiful Algodones Dunes lie on the eastern edge of Imperial Valley. Besides being vast and magnificent, they contain a number of plants and animals that live nowhere else in the world, including the threatened Peirson’s Milkvetch and the Dunes Scarab Beetle. These creatures are threatened by off-road vehicles. Currently about half of this largest dune system in the southwest is open to off-road vehicle use and half is protected for conservation and for non-motorized recreation. The BLM is currently beginning the public process for revising the current recreation management plan for the Dunes and has scheduled 3 public scoping meetings on April 22nd in San Diego, on April 23rd in Phoenix and April 24th in El Centro.

If you love the desert and want to help protect these magnificent dunes, please attend one of these meetings and tell the BLM that the current situation of half the dunes being open to off-roading and half protected for conservation and other types of recreation is fair and is working. Tell the BLM that you want the Algodones Dunes National Natural Landmark with all of its special creatures to be preserved for future generations.

For more information on the Dunes Recreation Area Management Plan and for details on next week’s meetings, please visit our Algodones Dunes web page. To find out what these places are like when visited on foot, you can read this narrative of a hike through one of the interim vehicle closures.

Two Forms of Desert Wildlife This Week

The past two weeks may have convinced you that it’s all Sunrise Powerlink all the time here at DesertBlog, but we’re interested in other topics too. Really… how about these two events for some relief from the gloom and doom?

Starting Wednesday and extending through Sunday, the 2008 Yuma Birding and Nature Festival offers 32 field trips, with opportunities to view wildlife of the Colorado (Sonoran) Desert, such as the burrowing owl and desert bighorn. Several of the trips will step over the state line into California, with visits to the Algodones Dunes, Salton Sea, and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Check the Arizona Daily Star and the Fest’s website for more info.

Up in the Mojave, the Rockin’ for Joshua Tree benefit concert runs April 18 & 19 in Pioneertown. Proceeds from the concert, auctions and drawings go to benefit the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice and the Desert Protection Society in their legal efforts to stop the Eagle Mountain dump, which threatens Joshua Tree National Park. (But organizers promise there won’t be any gloom and doom!) Prizes in the drawing include stays at the 29 Palms Inn and the Joshua Tree Rock House. Check the concert’s website for more details.

And of course, don’t forget your local Earth Day Celebration!

Sunrise Powerlink — So San Diego

“That’s so San Diego!” This was my wife’s response to yesterday’s excellent column by Dean Calbreath in the U-T, comparing the Sunrise Powerlink with locally generated solar power. In particular, she was responding to the article’s conclusion that solar power delivered by the Sunrise Powerlink would cost almost twice as much as locally generated solar power ($6 per watt vs. $3.85 per watt). Gee, what does that remind you of? Maybe the Chargers ticket guarantee, energy deregulation, or the city’s underfunded pension plan?

In addition to the cost comparison, Calbreath’s article covered most of the other bases, and he relies on quite a bit of documented evidence: San Diego does in fact have ample sunshine (SDG&E says the sun never shines here) and ample rooftop space for photovoltaic panels (SDG&E veep Mike Niggli says there are no buildings in San Diego). SDG&E wants us to believe the only alternatives to the Sunrise Powerlink are static electricity or “weasel power.” (Seriously! Just check YouTube.)

The article leaves open the question of why SDG&E hasn’t pursued local solar more aggressively. Why does the company keep ridiculously overestimating the costs and underestimating the capacity of local solar? Perhaps the company isn’t really interested in pursuing renewable energy at all? Perhaps what it really wants is to complete one more section of Sempra’s original “Full Loop” for fossil fuel energy?

The real question at this point is why the expensive and destructive Sunrise Powerlink is still on the table as an energy option for San Diego, especially when there are so many better options out there. As comments from San Diego County’s land use department pointed out, “It is unclear why this alternative was selected for analysis [in the EIR] as the Proposed Project considering its relatively low ranking” (in its ability to meet project goals with the least harm to the environment).

Could the fact that this bad project refuses to die be a result of the usual alliance of San Diego power brokers pursuing anything but the civic interest?

Let’s see, city officials and Chamber types getting behind a “solution” that is the most environmentally damaging, the most wasteful, the least secure, and the most expensive for the average citizen, but the one that enriches the wealthiest corporation in our region — that’s SO San Diego.

Sunrise Powerlink: Don’t Get Fooled Again

Today marks the 2nd anniversary of the day Kelly Fuller completed her epic walk along one route of the proposed Sunrise Powerlink. It also happens to be the last day to comment on this destructive, unnecessary and anti-green project.

In honor of the day, we’ve posted a new video slideshow on YouTube. It features many of the places Kelly worked so hard to protect from the Sunrise Powerlink, with a little bit of history thrown in, and info on the upcoming public hearings in May (more on those later). I envisioned the slideshow with The Who’s “We Don’t Get Fooled Again” playing with it. Until we can get the artists’ permission to use the song, just crank it up on your iPod while watching.

Unfortunately, but not unexpectedly, SANDAG chose to mark the day by endorsing the Sunrise Powerlink, ignoring the recommendation of its own Energy Working Group. Bill Powers reports that 60 people got up to speak at the meeting, and 3/4 of them opposed the Powerlink.

More on Web 2.0

Here at DesertBlog, we’re determined to drag the Sunrise Powerlink coalition and other public lands activists into the world of new media. (A lot of “global warming activists” and other young “greens” are very savvy with the Internet, but don’t know much about conserving public lands. We need to be able to speak to them.) Here’s what to do:

Once you’ve viewed the video, please take full advantage of YouTube’s rating feature: rate the video by clicking the stars and mark it as a favorite. Then share it with friends and family (especially teens and twenty-somethings with FaceBook and MySpace pages). This is how videos spread virally on YouTube and through the Internet.

Then go to this link on Hugg.com and vote for the video (you’ll need to register).

There’s also this page on Hugg that collects a lot of anti-Powerlink websites and videos. (If you know of one that’s not here, just leave a comment and I’ll add it, or you can always post it yourself.) You can vote for as many of these sites as you choose (the more huggs the merrier!) and of course, clicking through to them also increases their rankings. Think of it as a clean, green, Powerlink-spam-free space on the net.

California Desert Conservation Area Left Out of National Landscape Conservation Act

Afton Canyon, just one of the many spots in the California desert left out of today’s passage of the National Landscape Conservation Act.

Two hours ago, the United States House of Representatives passed the National Landscape Conservation System Act. This is good news for much of the nation’s public lands. The National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) was established under the Clinton Administration, and this act makes that system permanent, giving national park-like protections to millions of acres of public land. Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz) is to be commended for championing this bill.

However, as reported in the Los Angeles Times in March and on Daniel Patterson’s blog on Monday, the act effectively removes much of the California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA) from the NLCS. This is a strange omission, since the CDCA has been part of the NLCS since its inception, and the Bureau of Land Management in California wants it kept in the system. This means that millions of acres of Sonoran, Mojave and Great Basin deserts in California will not enjoy the protections they’ve had for years now.

Conservationists, including the Desert Protective Council, had hoped to get the CDCA added to the House version of the bill. Daniel Patterson is working on the issue for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility on behalf of concerned BLM staff in California. He says he’s now looking to the Senate to restore the missing lands to its version of the bill, and to keep them there when the bill goes to conference with the House.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Write or call your senators (contact info for California’s delegation below) telling them the California Desert Conservation Area should be added to the Senate version of the National Landscape Conservation System Act. The Bureau of Land Management wants it, and the people of California want it.

Write or call:

Barbara Boxer (D - CA)

112 Hart Senate Office Building

Washingto DC 20510

(202) 224-3553

Web form: boxer.senate.gov/contact

Dianne Feinstein (D - CA)

331 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington DC 20510

(202) 224-3841

Web form: feinstein.senate.gov/public

It also wouldn’t hurt to contact Rep. Mary Bono Mack, thanking her for her vote in favor of the bill, and asking her to support inclusion of the CDCA when the act comes back to conference.

Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R - Palm Springs)

104 Cannon House Office Building

Washington  DC 20515

(202) 225-5330

Web form: Click here

Sunrise Powerlink Deception in Print and Video — and What You Can Do About It

I did the unthinkable and buried the action item at the end of this post. If you just want to find out about a new action you can take to help stop the Sunrise Powerlink, scroll to the bottom. For comments on yesterday’s hearings and new videos on the Powerlink, read on.

Did you know that the Sunrise Powerlink is not the first transmission line that SDG&E has promised would carry renewable energy? And would you care to guess how well that promise was kept?

Not very well, according to statements by SDG&E vice-president Michael Niggli at Monday’s CPUC hearings on the Sunrise Powerlink. Under cross-examination by the Utility Consumers Action Network’s Michael Shames, Niggli admitted that the Southwest Powerlink, which runs from Imperial Valley along the border into San Diego, currently carries somewhat less than 50 megawatts of geothermal energy. This despite promises by the company when it built the 2000-megawatt line in 1984 that it would be used mainly for renewable energy. At most, Niggli said, the line carried about 240 megawatts of renewable energy for about ten years. So, the company promised us green energy from the Southwest Powerlink, then that line somehow got taken over by the usual fossil fuel supply. Now, when we really need renewable energy, we suddenly need a new line to get it here? Seems an old aphorism applies here, “Fool me once…” (you know the rest). Read more about this aspect of the hearings in this North County Times article.

The San Diego Union-Tribune focused on a different aspect of the hearings, which was Administrative Law Judge Steven Weissman’s pointed — if not harsh — questioning of Niggli. This included questioning how much SDG&E expects to spend just on the approval process for the Sunrise Powerlink. Turns out the projected amount has tripled to $126 million, (payable by ratepayers whether or not the line gets built). The article didn’t mention whether this amount includes the $45 million SDG&E has spent advertising the line in San Diego media this month or the other unspecified amounts the company has spent posting greenwash videos on every video distribution site out there. Another question Weissman asked the SDG&E executive: “why hasn’t SDG&E shown more initiative in encouraging the development of renewable-energy projects closer to home?” Thank you Judge Weissman, that’s a question we’ve all been asking. Niggli’s response was to “downplay the thrust of Weissman’s questioning,” but he did admit that roughly 75 percent of Sunrise’s capacity could be occupied by electricity produced from coal and natural gas (probably foreign).

AND ON THE NEW MEDIA FRONT… 

About those videos: If you go to YouTube and search “Sunrise Powerlink” you’ll find a collection of mostly pro-Sunrise Powerlink pieces. Fortunately, UCAN’s hilarious “Sunrise Powerlink Debate” is at the top of the list. But then there are a slew of short videos features children running through grass and promising clean air for our future. These are particularly galling, since the Imperial Valley will undoubtedly see more pollution as a result of the Powerlink, and the area already has some of the highest childhood asthma rates in the nation. Fortunately hardly anyone watches this greenwash spam. These videos have also been posted to a slew of other video hosting sites, such as revver, Vsandbox, Mixx, and more.

Fortunately, our side is beginning to respond with its own videos. These don’t have the slickness of SDG&E’s campaign, but this just shows what a true grassroots movement we have. Energy and Nature has a link this morning to a video slideshow by a San Diego activist pointing out the faults of the Powerlink in general, and particularly Route D. And I found this one on YouTube this morning, from Peoplespowerlink.org. It’s a GoogleEarth fly-over showing the relationship between the Imperial Valley substation (from which the Sunrise Powerlink would originate, along with the existing Southwest Powerlink) and the gas-fired power plants across the border. (For more on the full truth about Sempra/SDG&E’s “Fossil Fuel Corridor,” go here.)

We should point out that both the peoplespowerlink’s video and the Fossil Fuel Corridor map contend that SDG&E plans to build yet another gas-fired power plant in Mexicali. SDG&E’s Michael Niggli has consistently denied this claim, as recently as yesterday’s hearing. Yet it wasn’t long ago that San Diegans heard Sea World officials denying that they wanted to use an expanded height limit to build a rollercoaster. We all know how that turned out. And then there are SDG&E’s past promises about the Southwest Powerlink. Hmmm…. I wonder if we can trust them now?

RALLY ’ROUND THE VIDEO, BOYS (AND GIRLS)! 

If you’ve already submitted comments on the EIR (click here, if you haven’t commented yet), here’s another action you can take. PeoplesPowerlink has been remarkably bashful in promoting its video, which was posted over a month ago. (And I’m just finding out about it now!?! Come on people, don’t be shy, put the word out there.) Let’s help them out! We may not have $45,000 and slick TV ads, but our power is in numbers, not money. While SDG&E is using old media (and a half-hearted effort with new media) we can use new media to our advantage.

Here’s what to do: Watch the peoplespowerlink video on YouTube, then give it a five-star rating and mark it as one of your YouTube favorites (you’ll need to register with YouTube, or you can use an existing Google account). While you’re there, give a one-star rating to SDG&E’s videos.

Then post or rate Peoplespowerlink’s video on other “social bookmarking” sites such as digg, technorati, etc. Come back here and leave a comment telling us where you’ve posted it, with a link. Then folks can go to that social bookmarking site and vote up the video there.  

For instance, I’ve already posted a link to the video on hugg.com, a green bookmarking site run by Treehugger.com (rated by Time magazine as one of the top 25, and most frequently read, blogs in the world). Click here to go to the hugg link, then click the + sign to give the video a “hugg” (i.e. a vote — again you may have to register). Let’s put Peoplespowerlink on hugg’s front page, where it will get some real attention!