DesertBlog

Aguirre Criticizes Sunrise Powerlink, Gives SDG&E Solar Deadline

In his most strongly worded admonishment of SDG&E yet, San Diego City Attorney called on the company to come up with a rooftop solar plan for San Diego within 60 days, citing his authority to enforce state and local laws under the utility’s franchise agreement with the City. That was just one of the surprising, but little-covered, developments at yesterday’s Sunrise Powerlink hearings in Borrego Springs.

If you were following DesertBlog’s live Twitter posts on the hearing yesterday, then you read the Aguirre news there first. You also got a series of live updates from the hearing. I’ll be posting excerpts of the Twitter posts soon, but here are a couple things I didn’t cover:

Another surprising development, but one not yet covered by the media (which I missed too; credit goes to Diana Lindsay for reporting it to her e-mail list): After Stirling Energy Systems’ Buzz Schott touted the $100 million investment a foreign company is making in this proposed solar farm in the Imperial Valley, Administrative Law Judge Steven Weissman questioned Schott repeatedly about the cost for Phase 1 of the project. After several attempts to rebuff the question, Schott finally admitted that the total cost was in the neighborhood of $300 to $400 million, so the company still has a long way to go (technically as well as financially) before it can deliver any renewable power on the proposed Sunrise Powerlink. Questioning by the ALJ during a public hearing is apparently a rare event.

Denis Trafecanty again ran 50 miles from Ocotillo along the Powerline route and then down the California Riding and Hiking Trail to the hearing at the Borrego Springs Resort. I met him by chance on the trail coming in to Hellhole Canyon, and then later got this shot of him as he approached the resort. He was looking great, and then had enough energy to speak at the hearing. Go Denis! (He was running to raise money for the Protect Our Communities Fund which is still accepting pledges and donations.)

In the “if my head wasn’t attached” category: I forgot to report on the Smart Energy Solutions Campaign’s 27-foot-long banner with hundreds of comment cards collected at Earthday. It took a dozen volunteers to parade it through the meeting hall while campaign organizer Micah Mitrosky was speaking. Fortunately the IV Press was on the ball, and you can watch Micah testifying and see the Smart Energy supporters carrying the banner about halfway through this video. Micah and all her volunteers did a great job.

To follow DesertBlog on Twitter, go to Twitter.com, create an account, then “follow” the username “desertblog”. Mostly you’ll receive reminders when posts appear on the blog, plus occasional recommendations on good desert or conservation reading.

Hi-Tech Access to Sunrise Powerlink Hearings

Assuming the Verizon Wireless signal in the desert is as good as the Borrego Springs Resort says it is, DesertBlog will be posting short updates on the Sunrise Powerlink to Twitter.com. To follow the posts in real time, you’ll need to register for a Twitter account, and then “follow” the username DesertBlog. You then can read these posts as they come in on the Twitter.com website (or on a nifty web gadget called Thwirl), or get them as text messages on your cell phone.

What you’ll get: Brief (140 character!) posts on what’s happening at the hearings, a crowd count, notable quotes from speakers (pro & con), what groups are there, revealing statements by the Commissioners.

We’ll probably figure out a way to re-post all the posts here on DesertBlog on Tuesday.

More Sunrise Powerlink Info

This is the only kind of sunrise we need to see from the San Felipe Hills — or anywhere else in San Diego’s backcountry.

UPDATE: The San Diego Union-Tribune covered Sempra’s donation to the Governor today, May 10, in this article.

The Desert Protective Council has a new article covering the back- ground of the Sunrise Powerlink, titled ”Sunrise Powerlink: Battle for California’s Energy Future,” on our main website. It will also appear in the Summer 2008 issue of Desert Report. (BTW, Desert Report’s current issue has several articles covering the solar energy issue in other parts of the California Desert, including a good article by Bill Powers.)

Utility Consumers Action Network has posted Michael Shames’ report on the latest round of Evidentiary Hearings on the Sunrise Powerlink. He says SDG&E’s case has fallen apart (but don’t think that lets you out of attending Monday’s public hearings in Borrego Springs!). Here’s a quote: “Sunrise is a remarkable money loser — some $8 billion over its estimated 60-year lifespan.”

UCAN also has a reprint of a  Capitol Alert article about Sempra’s recent (and fishy) $50,000 donation to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s favorite political initiative, just days after the Governator reaffirmed his support of the Sunrise Powerlink in a speech at Yale. The Union-Tribune seems to have missed this story, and Capitol Alert requires a registration, so thanks to UCAN for posting this.

We hope to see many (most… all…) of you in Borrego Springs on Monday. If you speak or leave a written comment, remember to emphasize that we don’t need the Sunrise Powerlink anywhere, because we have smarter energy alternatives available within San Diego.

Should we clearcut forests to install solar farms?

Of course not. In addition to all their other values, forests act as carbon sinks. Yet according to a study reported in Nature Reports: Climate Change, deserts may store as much carbon as some temperate forests. The carbon is stored not only in desert plants, but also in biological soil crusts, which are easily damaged by surface disturbance. And at least some solar projects don’t just disturb the surface, they scrape it entirely, over areas totalling thousands of acres.

Hmmm… Maybe we ought to slow down on this rush to build solar farms in the desert, before we find out that big solar is really the next ethanol. At the very least, it seems wise to focus on urban-based renewable energy first, and confine solar farms to heavily disturbed lands near existing transmission lines.

Find more photos of the Mojave Desert at digitaldesert.net.

Threatened Desert Tortoise

Threatened Desert Tortoise Takes Another Hit

In March in the Mojave Desert northeast of Barstow California, the US Army began removing close to 800 desert tortoises from habitat considered critical to their survival to an area south of the Ft. Irwin Military Base. The tortoises were airlifted from their homes in an area that the army says it needs to train soldiers with faster-moving tanks and other war weaponry. Conservation groups battled with the army for nearly 20 years over this 131,000-acre expansion of the base, which prior to the Federal government’s approval of the expansion, was already taking up area the size of Rhode Island in the California Desert.

The Desert Tortoise, California’s official state reptile, has inhabited the Mojave for 100s of thousands of years. It is federally and state-listed as a threatened species because in the past 15 years especially, the population throughout its southwestern range has plummeted by 90%. It has been preyed upon by ravens, foxes and skunks. Diseases, ORVs (which crush their burrows as well as run them over), invasions of non-native plants with lower nutritional value, and loss of habitat are other reasons for the tortoise’s decline.

As of this posting, coyotes, which do not usually prey on tortoises, have killed 11 of the relocated tortoises and altogether 23 tortoises have died in the move. The shells of the tortoises that have been moved all are fitted with transmitters. One unanswered question is whether the coyotes are possibly lured to the tortoises’ location by picking up the transmitted signal. Another factor in the current coyote predation is the long-term drought in the desert and the lower numbers of rabbits - the coyotes’ prime desert food.

The Center for Biological Diversity and the Desert Survivors have jointly filed an intent to sue the Army over the large-scale relocation of the tortoises in order to ensure that the new habitat is actively and adequately managed. Litigation notwithstanding, this relocation is most likely to be another devastating hit in terms of the long-term survival of this most ancient of currently living desert creatures.

For more information about this “translocation” contact Doran Sanchez of the California Desert District Office in Moreno Valley at (951) 697-5220, or Roy Averil-Murray, the desert tortoise recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at Roy_Averill-Murray@fws.gov or check out the Riverside Press-Enterprise article.

Inspiration

It’s not a desert book – or mostly not – but the author is a desert writer working on a new book about the Joshua tree, so on that excuse we’re reviewing Walking with Zeke here on DesertBlog.

Chris Clarke calls Walking with Zeke “an edited compilation of several years of writing about my best friend’s life and death.” Though I have almost no familiarity with the books-from-blogs genre, and none with self-published books, I think it’s pretty safe to say that Walking with Zeke is the best self-published book of the year, and possibly the best “book that grew from a blog” of all time. Lifted straight from the author’s acclaimed Creek Running North web log (blog seems too coarse a word for the fine writing he’s done here) with only a little reworking, it’s surprising how well the story coheres, told in the original journal entry format.

This is a great animal book, but also much more than an animal book. It’s filled with the author’s love for his companion, deft characterizations of Zeke (both the young and lively dog we see in flashbacks and the slowing dog of the journal’s present), and moving accounts of the author’s near-heroic efforts to care for Zeke until the end. As an old writing instructor once said, “If you’re not risking sentimentality, you’re not even in the ballpark.” Treading on inherently sentimental ground, Clarke rises above sentimentality to deliver honest and often gripping emotion.

But beyond the central core of Zeke’s story, this is also a book filled with careful observations of nature in the author’s Bay Area community of Pinole, in the Sierra, in the Mojave, and elsewhere. There are also odd moments of humor, fascinating meditations on the convergent evolution of humans and dogs, and  thoughts on the intersection of wild and tamed nature. Here’s one nature moment desert enthusiasts will appreciate:

Then I turned. The raven was atop a Joshua tree. It just wouldn’t shut up. And then something else started barking. It sounded like a poodle. And then it didn’t. It was a coyote, and it was barking. At us. It stood at the base of the Joshua tree that held the raven, and it wanted to be where we were and therefore it wanted us to go away… 

It was the first time a coyote had ever barked at me, though I had heard them sing countless times. I stood with my family and watched the Coyote and the Raven in the Joshua tree, as close a thing to a Real Life Holy Trinity as I could imagine. 

Walking with Zeke achieves what all good nature writing should: it reminds us simply to pay attention. After finishing the book, I took my own dog for an evening walk along our local creek, where cool air pooling in the canyon bottom offered relief from a blistering day. As we climbed back out, a flash of wings: horned owl alighting in a eucalyptus. A common sight, but one I hadn’t noticed in years.

You can get the Zeke book here.

Why Protect the Desert?

The Sunrise Powerlink would run at the base of the distant mountains in this photo, altering the experience of hikers on the Pacific Crest Trail in the San Felipe Hills.

“The desert’s a good place for the Sunrise Powerlink — there’s nothing out there.” Those were the most ignorant words I heard at San Diego’s Earth Fair. That sentiment that the desert is a good place for all sorts of infrastructure is being heard a lot these days, from the random person on the street to the Governator.

Which raises the question, what is it about these apparently lifeless places that draws desert enthusiasts’ fascination and love? For me, the scenic or aesthetic is a big part, but only a part, of what I love about the place: the desert’s sense of openness, vastness, wildness and austerity, features which repel some people, are attractive to me. But beyond the scenic, there’s the knowledge, gained only with direct experience, that behind all that apparent lifelessness, life perseveres. That the lifeless appearance is actually the result of survival strategies adopted by many desert plants and some desert animals. That this perseverance is in itself something admirable. That on certain occasions, as we’ve seen this spring, the desert can burst forth with remarkable fecundity.

Chris Clarke’s Creek Running North has a great post on just this issue of the scenic versus desolate qualities of the desert. Chris, who has been the editor of Faultline online environmental journal and Earth Island Journal, describes himself as a “misanthropic dog-and-desert nature poetry blogger.” Chris will be making occasional posts on DesertBlog, so check out his Scenic/Desolate post for a preview.

What do you find that’s scenic in the desert, even in its most austere forms? What do you find that’s worth protecting? Post your comments in the space provided below.

Another power line? Thanks, already got one… but real green power I could use.
Fortunately, for the immediate issue of protecting San Diego and Imperial County deserts from the Sunrise Powerlink, it’s not really a question of choosing between this boondoggle and our scenic backcountry landscapes in all their diversity of life. That’s because the thin veneer of green paint SDG&E and the Chamber have slapped on this thing continues to peel, as shown in this column by Union-Tribune business columnist Dean Calbreath. In addition, there are many much better alternatives to the Powerlink, ones that actually do promote “green energy” in all its senses. And if we must go to the Imperial Valley for renewables, we already have the Southwest Powerlink for that — we just need to take the fossil fuel energy off of it first.

Please attend the May 12 hearings in Borrego Springs to tell the California Public Utilities Commission you want these real green energy alternatives; if you can’t attend, send us a letter that we’ll deliver for you. Full details on the hearing and a form letter are available on our Sunrise Powerlink page.

May 12 Sunrise Powerlink Rendezvous in Borrego Springs

People came from all over to voice their opposition to the Sunrise Powerlink during the hearings in February.  Now we have an even better chance to make our voices heard.   (Photo by Diana Lindsay.)

For the past couple weeks, DesertBlog has regularly mentioned the extremely important Sunrise Powerlink hearings in Borrego Springs on May 12. Now we’ve posted a complete alert on our website. The page contains tips on attending the hearings, talking points, links to maps, and more. Attending the hearing is the most important action you can take in the next month to stop the Sunrise Powerlink. However, if you absolutely can’t attend the hearings, the alert also has links to suggested “talking points” for writing your own comment letter to the CPUC and to a form letter to the CPUC. Send the letters to us (contact info on the web page) and we’ll turn them in for you at the May 12 hearings.

Other ways to help. If you live in the San Diego region and want to do more than attend the hearing or write a comment letter, the Smart Energy Solutions Campaign is holding two mobilization meetings, on the evenings of May 5 in Borrego Springs and May 8 in Lakeside, where volunteers can help promote a large turnout to the May 12 hearings. Links to flyers are also on our alert.

Let’s fill the Borrego Springs Resort to overflowing on May 12!

Update: The Anza-Borrego Foundation has a similar alert, focusing on Anza-Borrego Desert State Park on its Sunrise Powerlink page.

More Sunrise Powerlink News from San Diego EarthFair

I didn’t get to see the mayoral forum at Sunday’s EarthFair in Balboa Park, but I heard several accounts that challenger Steve Francis just about came out against the Sunrise Powerlink with many critical comments about this boondoggle. (Yesterday, Francis formally announced opposition to the Regents Road Bridge, which I like to call the Regents Deathlink because it will add 20,000 vehicle trips a day through an elementary school crossing on Regents Road in University City, and also violate Rose Canyon Open Space Park.)

I had also heard that Mayor Jerry Sanders refused to shake Francis’ hand at the end of the debate, probably because he was ticked off at being soundly booed by the crowd during the hour. Now more details are emerging. Pat Flannery’s Blog of San Diego reports today that Sanders not only didn’t shake Francis’ hand, but made an ugly comment in passing. Flannery also has large video files of the debate on his blog.

San Diego CityBeat also has coverage of the forum here.

And here’s a third-hand account: after the mayoral forum, Francis told a Sunrise Powerlink opponent that “we ought to stop it.” (If you’re that opponent, please leave a comment and give us a direct quote.)

In other Sunrise Powerlink News: Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee has a column today that needs responding to. Seems he’s been quaffing the SDG&E koolaid.

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”