More from Denis:

I’m doing a 50-mile run this weekend which is part of an organized run called the Pacific Crest Trail 50 Mile Run. It starts on Saturday at 6am along I-8, goes north to Mt. Laguna and beyond for 25 miles, then returns to I-8 when it’s warm and toasty; all info about the run is at www.pct50.com [NOTE: the run has been moved to Cuyamaca due to the Marine helicopter crash in the Laguna Mountains]. We need your “per mile” pledge to help us with the legal effort in process to stop SDGE’s T-Line. Barring a Rattlesnake bite or a hard fall, I fully expect to finish the run; it will be warm, but the heat never stopped me before, so when you pledge, figure that I will finish the run.

If you think the T-Line will not affect you, then you’re dead wrong. The initial transmission line will go through South County, with future plans to cut through the same places in the original “Preferred Northern Route”. If you reside in the Desert, then it’s true that you will be an “island”, but your island will be surrounded by massive wind turbines, solar farms, and power lines for you to see each day.

If we let SDGE get the T-Line in South County, with all the various agency Permits from BLM, USFS, Fish and Wildlife, etc, the next lines through North County will be a “slam dunk” application process with the precedent set in South County.

This is all about Passion over Greed, David over Goliath and the People over the 900 pound gorilla (Sempra) who is running scared right now. Our Board has the Passion, our hired experts have the Passion, our Attorneys have the Passion and most importantly the People have the Passion. Now with a little money, let us move forward with our Passion. So to summarize:

1. Email me back with a “per mile” pledge.

2. Send this message to your Group list.

3. I’ll send you my results on Monday, with instructions on how/where to send your pledge money.

Denis Trafecanty

Protect Our Communities Foundation

PO Box 305

Santa Ysabel, CA 92070

Cell 760-703-1149

Email – denis@vitalityweb.com

Denis aimed his message at a San Diego County audience, but if you’re a ratepayer to any California publicly-owned electric utility, then the Sunrise Powerlink will bring you higher electric bills. And if you live anywhere in the country and don’t like to see companies dress up the same old outdated dirty technology in faux “green,” “renewable” clothing, then you should be concerned as well. Many “green” power lines are being proposed around the country that are either unnecessary, or, like the Sunrise Powerlink, begin conveniently close to dirty power.

And if you’re wondering whether the Protect Our Communities Fund is really the right organization to give your anti-Sunrise Powerlink money to, consider that Michael Shames, the leader of that other big anti-Sunrise outfit, the Utility Consumers Action Network, said at a public meeting that UCAN is all set for funds, and people should donate to POC. So go ahead and e-mail Denis with your pledge today. You can find out more about the Protect Our Communities Fund here.

Another option is to donate to the Desert Protective Council, the funder of the first rounds of the Sunrise Powerlink campaign. You can donate to us through the secure, Guidestar-sponsored Network for Good site. Mark your donation “Sunrise Powerlink,” and we’ll make sure it gets spent in the right place.

Or, you could write a comment letter to the Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative, with a rewording of this message: “the costs and impacts of all yet-to-be-built transmission lines, such as GreenPath North and the Sunrise Powerlink, must be considered when analyzing the economics and impacts of large-scale renewable energy zones. Failing to add these to the equation in effect gives large-scale renewable energy projects an unfair subsidy over local generation alternatives.” Send your letters, making sure to include name, address and phone, to:

Claire Gallardo: “Claufenb AT energy.state.ca.us” (replace the AT with @, obviously)

The new East County Community Action Coalition (ECCAC) is hosting a townhall meeting on the Sunrise Powerlink at 6 p.m. in Alpine at the Alpine Community Center. Organizers hope 1000 people will attend.

The Keynote Speaker is Supervisor Dianne Jacob, and Engineer Bill Powers, UCAN’s Michael Shames and activist David Hogan are also expected to speak. Should be the biggest meeting on the Sunrise Powerlink since last spring — hope everyone can turn out. Info about the meeting is available at the ECCAC website and in East County Magazine.

If off-road vehicles are your concern, another meeting in Imperial County might suit you better. DPC advisory board member George Wuerthner will be speaking at Imperial Valley College on the subject of his book, Thrillcraft: The Environmental Consequences of Motorized Recreation.

WHEN: Monday, April 6, at 6PM

WHERE: Imperial Valley College, 380 E. Aten Road Imperial CA 92251(Between Highways 86 and 111)

Building 500 Room 504 — Lots of Free Parking

COST: Free

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

PLEASE CALL PROFESSOR JANE HIGGINSON (760) 355-5751

Also see: www.stopthrillcraft.org.

MARCH 24th UPDATE: Today a big article appeared in the New York Times on conflicts between environmentalists over renewable energy. The article featured a proposal by Senator Dianne Feinstein to protect over a thousand square miles of the Mojave Desert from industrial development, including renewable energy. Much of this land, located in a swath between Joshua Tree National Park and the Mojave National Preserve, was thought to already have been protected when the Wildlands Conservancy made an historic purchase of Catellus railroad properties and transferred them to the Bureau of Land Management. Feinstein’s proposal is similar to the Wildlands Conservancy’s own “Mother Road Monument” proposal, which Chris Clarke has covered on Coyote Crossing. While these proposals won’t protect all of the desert lands we’re concerned about, Feinstein’s swift action shows that people in Washington are beginning to understand that renewable energy has impacts like any other industrial development. It’s a ray of light in what Gidon points out (in a comment below) is a very depressing picture.

U.S. Representative Brian Bilbray has joined Dana Rohrabacher in calling for solar farms to be exempted from environmental review. You might want to call Bilbray to tell him why that’s a bad idea: 202-225-0508 or 858-350-1150. The bill under consideration is HR 964.

Our previous post, “Problems with Big Desert Solar,” has received more comments than any other DesertBlog post, much of it centering on whether photovoltaic solar panels really produce more energy than it takes to create them. The short answer is that they do, by far. More details here. Another good article promoting the promise of PV solar energy came out late last year in Scientific American.

And while we spend a lot of time debating which type of renewable energy is better, Bill Powers says we can cut our energy-related carbon footprint by 20% almost overnight.  How? Simply by turning on all of the moth-balled natural gas-fired power plants in various parts of the country, and shutting down a similar capacity of coal-fired power plants. Bill’s PowerPoint presentation containing this and many other surprising facts on energy production and transmission is available here.

To sort a lot of this out, we’ve put together a Big Renewables fact sheet in question and answer format. It lays out the reasons the desert is a place worth saving — not an empty, barren waste land — and describes what we think is a sensible, realistic, and conservation-oriented approach to reducing our energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. You can find it here.

Meanwhile, Salon.com has a good article today on the ugly side of “green transmission,” with quotes from our friends at the Center for Biological Diversity and the Alliance for Responsible Energy Policy. 

And speaking of transmission (though not renewable energy per se ), there’s a new group in Lakeside that is speaking out against the non-renewable Sunrise Powerlink. They call themselves the East County Community Action Coalition and their website is here.

As Denis Trafecanty reports below, both the Lakeside planning group’s board members and the local Fire Department are outraged that they were left out of the Sunrise Powerlink planning process. And who can blame them? First, SDG&E insisted that it was the northern route or nothing, and then late in the game switched to accepting the southern route. The map of the many options for the southern route looks like a den of snakes (no disrespect to snakes intended), so who knew where it might end up?

Turns out one spot it will traverse is the scenic El Monte Valley, pictured above with a mockup of the power line included. That first tower would sit on private property, just 30 feet from where the owner plans to rebuild his house that was destroyed in the 2003 Cedar Fire.

Here’s Denis’s summary of the meeting:

“As Yogi Berra once said, “It’s Déjà Vu all over again.” Lakeside residents came out 100+ strong Wednesday night at their Planning Group meeting and the five or so SDG&E reps heard loud and clear how Lakeside felt. The Planning Board voted unanimously to send a letter to our embattled Governor, his cronies at the CPUC, and others to state their complete opposition to the Sunrise Fossil Fuel Line. The Lakeside Planning Group is really upset at SD County for not informing them about what was happening during the power line testimony.

“The Lakeside Fire Dept also attended the Planning Board meeting and said that 1) they were never notified of the towers, and 2) the fire chief reported that the ability to fight fires where the towers are located would be SEVERELY hampered because of not being able to use planes and helicopters.  As this is very rough terrain, ground units cannot get in to fight fires. This would mean that they would have to wait until the fires got to the more populated areas such as Blossom Valley before they could even begin to fight them. By that time, the fire could stand a chance to be too large to fight and could cause a catastrophe like the Cedar and Witch Creek Fires. 

“No matter what SDGE/Sempra says, this line hasn’t passed all the legal hurdles yet.

–Denis T.”

Meanwhile, the national press continues to miss the real story on the Sunrise Powerlink, as in this sloppy report in the Washington Post. The article says that the power line is “designed to carry solar, wind and geothermal energy,” even though this is an engineering impossibility. The line certainly could have been legally required by regulators to carry some amount of renewable energy, but SDG&E successfully fended off this requirement. It is true that the line would be sited near some potential wind and solar resources, but it also would originate at the same spot where existing power from imported Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) enters the country, and where more LNG power could be added in the future. So it’s more accurate to say that the line is designed to carry LNG-fueled power. The Post missed this angle entirely, describing controversy over the line as a setback for renewable energy, rather than as a setback for Sempra’s plans to make the most of its LNG infrastructure in Baja.

As always, we emphasize that there are many alternatives to SDG&E’s proposed power line, such as enacting the San Diego Smart Energy 2020 plan, introducing a real statewide Feed-In Tariff so solar power producers get paid a fair rate for all the power they produce, and paying companies like SDG&E to insulate homes and businesses rather than build outdated infrastructure.

By the way, here’s how El Monte Valley looks without the power lines:

Last month, we reported on problems with the Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative. Chief among those problems was a demonstrated lack of concern for the impacts these large-scale solar and transmission projects will have on wildlife and habitats. Now you have a chance to voice your concerns over RETI’s misguided direction at a public meeting this Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., in Palm Desert. Go here for more details on the meeting, and here for full background on RETI.

Here is a list of concerns you might want to address in your comments at the public meeting:

1. RETI’s basic premise is flawed. RETI simply assumes that we need large-scale renewable projects in remote areas and new transmission to go with them. In making this assumption, RETI ignores the ongoing revolution in photovoltaic solar technology, which makes it possible to cost-competitively produce significant quantities of power right where the power is needed. If we can generate electricity on rooftops and parking lots, why scrape the desert? And even if remote projects are required, engineer Bill Powers has made persuasive arguments that no new transmission is needed — we simply need to boot carbon-fueled energy off of the existing transmission lines and push forward with energy efficiency measures (which are the first thing we should be doing anyway).
2. RETI has refused to consider even the most basic conservation principles.  Even if one accepts the notion that remote, large-scale solar and wind projects are necessary, there is a rational way to carry out these projects. This rational approach would require these projects to be built on already disturbed lands (such as abandoned farmland), near existing transmission lines and water sources. But this rational approach has so far been rejected successfully by the industry representatives in the RETI process. This has resulted in a plan that could place industrial-scale developments in wilderness areas, national monuments, areas of critical environmental concern, critical habitats, and other areas that have been designated for protection, not development. Simply put, it’s cheaper for companies to build their projects on free public land, even though one such project might wipe out 80% of the rare Mojave milkweed’s known population in California, to list just one of a long list of environmental impacts. And building these projects far from existing transmission is a boon for utilities, which reap much of their profit from building new transmission lines.
3. RETI engages in an elaborate shell game. You’ll often hear that large concentrating solar power plants provide energy much more cheaply than photovoltaic installations. We’ve already reported on one way in which this is like comparing apples to oranges. In its cost comparisons, RETI has its own suspect number crunching — it assumes that two proposed transmission lines, the Sunrise Powerlink and Green Path North, are already built and paid for. Readers of this blog will know that neither line is anywhere near breaking ground, let alone being paid for. In truth, these transmission lines would add billions to the amount ratepayers across the state will pay for remote renewables, yet these billions are left uncounted in RETI’s cost comparisons.

The RETI website promises a transparent process. So far the process has been transparently biased in favor of corporate profit and against environmental protection. The bottom line for us is pretty simple: scraping more desert for human uses, when there are ready alternatives that accomplish the same goals, is not “green.”

We hope you’ll be able to attend the meeting this weekend and give the RETI stakeholders a piece of your mind. And if you have further comments on the RETI process and what is going wrong with it, please provide them in comments below.

On a related topic, the CPUC was more lavish in its gifts to California’s utilities, giving them an $82 million bonus for their efforts to increase energy efficiency. Only problem is, those efforts, as reported by the utilities themselves, are likely overblown. Some watchdog groups, including the CPUC’s own Division of Ratepayer Advocates, think the utilities actually deserve fines for failing to reach their goals. But to paraphrase CPUC President Mike Peevey, “We have to get the utilities their bonuses by Christmas. We can’t waste time quibbling over whether the bonuses are deserved.” Mr. Peevey has a soft spot in his heart for the big utilities, which is likely explained by the fact that he used to be the President of Edison International and Southern California Edison.

(For more stomach-turning coverage of the money flowing every which way at the CPUC, and how this results in fat payments to the utilities, check this L.A. Times article. Suffice to say that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich would feel right at home here.)

But back to the Sunrise Powerlink: After years of work by average citizens, activists and conservation groups, there was considerable grief over the CPUC’s decision. Still, UCAN’s Michael Shames was relatively sanguine in his comment to the San Diego Union-Tribune: ” ‘We expected this decision from Day One, and we’ll appeal,’ he said. ‘They ignored the facts on cost and reliability issues.’ ” UCAN and other groups opposed to the Powerlink are weighing their legal options.

While this decision is definitely a setback, it’s just Round One of a multi-round fight. As someone commented during the hearings last May, the politics are all on Sempra/SDG&E’s side (as shown by this decision), while the facts are on our side. The two Administrative Law Judges assigned to the case have done an excellent job of ensuring that all those facts made their way into the record. Commissioner Dian Grueneich’s alternate proposed decision (and her no vote on this decision), shows that there’s a legitimate basis to doubt SDG&E’s “assurances” that the line will carry renewable power. All of these facts will carry a lot of weight in a court room.

Some might feel that all their letter-writing and calling the Governor was for naught. However, though we couldn’t persuade either the Governor or the CPUC to weigh the facts — or even heed the agency’s own EIR — all of this effort was important in laying the groundwork for the upcoming legal challenges. The thousands of people who attended public hearings and the countless e-mails and phone calls from all over the country show that this is not a NIMBY effort, but one acting for the public good. That fact, too, can carry weight in a court room.

Speaking from my limited personal experience with legal cases involving dubious projects in park lands, I can say that it’s always a sad day when public officials ignore the facts in order to put corporate interests before the public interest. But the day when a judge overturns that misguided decision offers sweet vindication (second-best only to being able to personally slap the decision makers upside their shiny, bald-pated heads).

So be of good cheer, fellow activists. With enough time and legal pressure, we can turn this lump of coal into something shiny and beautiful: a Sunrise Powerlink-free backcountry (like McCain Valley, above) and a locally-based renewable energy future.

(And if you want to deliver your own holiday gift that will help to counter the CPUC’s “gift,” a good way to do that is with a donation to the Protect Our Communities Fund, managed by the San Diego Foundation. A donation to DPC wouldn’t hurt either!)

As if we needed more proof that the Sunrise Powerlink isn’t really about bringing renewable energy to San Diego, CPUC President Mike Peevey just gave proof positive. Yesterday, he issued yet another alternative proposed decision in the Sunrise Powerlink case. His decision would allow the transmission line to be built along the proposed Southern Route, but with no requirements that the line actually carry renewable energy. A previous proposed decision by Commissioner Dian Grueneich required SDG&E to provide extensive assurances that the line would actually carry renewable energy. SDG&E’s protests against those assurances are further evidence that the company is not willing to back up its green marketing hype with real action.

But Peevey now seems to have bought SDG&E’s greenwashing, saying such assurances are unnecessary. Now, this is a guy with whom I’d love to do business. Hey Mike, I’ve got a hunting dog I’ll sell you, but no guarantees that it will do more than sleep on the porch (see picture above; really, he only does that about 23 hours a day). Also, I have a car for sale — did you want brakes with that? And then there’s this bridge spanning San Diego Bay that you might be interested in — you won’t need to see a deed, will you?

But it’s not his own money that Peevey is spending, it’s yours and mine and every other California utility ratepayer’s, to the tune of $1.5 billion (more like $2 billion before it’s finished). And for that we’re likely to get a transmission line that destroys our backcountry landscapes, is vulnerable to wildfire, and carries mostly carbon-based energy, while SDG&E can meet the new 33% renewable mandate by trading for renewable energy credits.

The CPUC is now expected to make a decision on the Powerlink as early as December 18. Please contact the Governor today, using our new contact info. If you’ve already contacted him, do it again, giving your thoughts on this latest proposed decision.

MORE INFO

The San Diego Union-Tribune has a full article today about the decision and reaction to it, including good quotes from Commissioner Grueneich, UCAN’s Michael Shames, and San Diego Smart Energy’s Micah Mitrosky (welcome back, Micah!). Readers’ comments at the end of the article show a somewhat less measured reaction to Peevey and his proposed decision.

And one caveat on the U-T’s coverage: the article states that opponents’ efforts against the line have prevented it from going through “scenic rural communities in North County.” This may be true for now, but it’s a virtual certainty that SDG&E will be back in just a couple of years with a proposal to extend a line from San Diego northward to the Los Angeles market, very likely through those same communities that have fought so hard against the Powerlink. Approval of a southern route for Sunrise would be just the first step in completing Sempra/SDG&E’s “Fossil Fuel Corridor”.

In other Sunrise Powerlink coverage, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park Superintendent Mark Jorgensen continues to lead the way as an outspoken defender of California’s largest (and we think best!) state park. In comments to the Borrego Sun on the proposed southern alignment of the Powerlink, Jorgensen said, ” ‘We are relieved that the northern route appears to have fallen out of favor, but we still very strongly support the CPUC’s recommendation for in-basin generation. It’s time to abandon the invasive monolith wire projects and really move ahead with local solar.’ Noting that environmental impacts, including fire risks and impacts to views, are present on the southern route, Jorgensen said the land that would be marred, while not State Wilderness, is still ‘beautiful desert’.” (The Borrego Sun does not offer its articles online.)

Please see our Sunrise Powerlink page for updated info on how to contact the Governor and the CPUC, and contact them today.

No way, no how, no Sunrise

We don’t need it here,

We don’t need it there,

We don’t need it anywhere!

If you’ve already e-mailed the Governor, give him a call. If you’ve already called him, call him again. Here’s the number:

916-445-2841

There’s also a new alert up at the San Diego Smart Energy Solutions Campaign’s website that asks the public to call the Governor and provides more info.

UPDATE: The Center for Biological Diversity also has put up this alert that lets you send a letter to the CPUC with a couple of clicks, and also asks you to call the Governor.

MORE DETAILS

The CPUC’s two proposed decisions really were a blow to SDG&E’s plans, as you can see in this excerpt from Saturday’s Union-Tribune: “SDG&E Chief Executive Debra Reed told the commissioners that … the proposed conditions are a non-starter.” Those would be the conditions that would require the Powerlink to live up to its green marketing hype. SDG&E wants to advertise Sunrise as a “green power line” but doesn’t want to ensure the truthfulness of that advertising.

But this setback for SDG&E doesn’t mean the fight is over. The CPUC could easily approve the southern route with no conditions, or it could even approve the Northern route. And if you need another reason that the southern route is an equally bad idea, consider that it is nearly inevitable that SDG&E will seek to extend that line northward to Los Angeles, through the very same communities and backcountry landscapes that have been threatened by the northern alignment: Ramona and Santa Ysabel to name but a few.

So call the Gov today. You’ll be glad that you did. (And the aide who takes your message to him is very polite.)