SDG&E Plan Opposed by Jacob and Sierra Club

Commentary by E.A. Barrera

County Supervisor Dianne Jacob and the San Diego Chapter of the Sierra Club have declared their opposition to San Diego Gas & Electric's proposal to build a massive power link through the eastern portions of the county. Called the "Sunrise Powerlink" by SDG&E, the plan would construct energy links and a proposed 500 kilovolt (kV) alternating current transmission line that would be placed in service by 2010.

"The project will connect the existing Imperial Valley substation near El Centro, California to a new 'central' substation located somewhere in central San Diego County," said SDG&E senior vice president James Avery. "SDG&E will construct two new 230 kV lines connecting the central substation to the existing Sycamore Canyon substation and one new 230 kV line between the Sycamore Canyon substation and the Peasquitos substation. Where possible, SDG&E anticipates locating new facilities within or along existing rights-of-way, although specific routes...for most segments of the project are not known at this time, the total mileage for the 500 kV portion of the project is estimated to be between 85 and 100 miles."

SDG&E formally unveiled its initial application for the proposal to the California Public Utilities Commission on Dec 14, 2005. The process SDG&E has proscribed for development and implementation of the plan would see a series of public hearings held in the areas impacted by the power link, with an ultimate decision as to the route of the power link determined next October. SDG&E has asked the CPUC to withhold the company's preparation of a state-mandated Environmental Impact Report until after it has concluded the series of public hearings. SDG&E maintains that the public's role in determining the course of the power link, is the reason it is necessary to delay an EIR report.

"SDG&E has departed from the traditional practice used to site major transmission projects, whereby public comment from local communities and regional stakeholders is gathered after the applicant has selected the preferred and alternate route, and has completed preliminary engineering and environmental studies," Avery said. "The need adjudication is often the most time-consuming part of the... process, and by starting now, SDG&E believes it is possible for the CPUC to first determine need for the project by the

third quarter of 2006 and then approve the route for the line and ultimately decide this application by late spring 2007."

This request sparked the Sierra Club and the San Diego chapter of the Center for Biological Diversity to file a motion on Jan 20 demanding that the CPUC require SDG&E to proceed with an EIR before any route was established. The Sierra Club claimed that by determining the route in advance, the public and the CPUC were conceding the need for the power link plan and avoiding the mandatory listing of alternative plans - including a "no-project" alternative that would compare the impacts to the environment if the Sunrise Powerlink plan was either approved or denied.

"The alternatives discussed should focus on ways to avoid or substantially lessen the project's significant environmental effects," said Paul Blackburn of the San Diego Sierra Club.

The Sierra Club's opposition is based on guidelines of the California Environmental Quality Act. Under CEQA, a development project must undergo a full environmental study to determine if the project will create a significant environmental burden to the area in question. On Aug 31, 2000, then CEQA Court Judge Judith McConnell (who now serves on the California 4th Circuit Court of Appeals) rejected a proposal by the County Board of Supervisors to re-zone 191,000 acres of farmland in much of the same backcountry where the proposed SDG&E project would exist. Judge McConnell decided that California law required any major development project or re-zone proposal be preceded by a full EIR.

"An environmental review is an environmental alarm bell whose purpose is to alert the public and its responsible officials to environmental changes before they have reached ecological points of no return," McConnell said at that time. "The court finds that an environmental review deferred is an environmental review denied."

The Sierra Club insists that allowing SDG&E to proceed without an EIR would also violate CEQA's provision that environmental concerns play a "co-equal" part in any development decision.

"If the Commission issues a decision on purpose and need before completing an EIR, it would foreclose its ability to use the EIR to choose an alternative way of meeting the same need, its ability to consider a rulemaking to plan for orderly transmission line development in southern California, as well as its ability to disapprove the Project because it will already have committed itself to the Project," Blackburn said.

The proposed service area would encompass a massive swath of land from El Centro to Del Mar. Three routes heading west from an existing substation in Imperial County are proposed. On maps provided by SDG&E at its project Website, www.sdge.com/sunrisepowerlink, one of the proposals would have a powerlink travel along Highway 78 near Julian to a substation near Santa Ysabel.

Jacob, who represents Julian and Ramona on the County Board of Supervisors, has publicly stated her opposition to this specific route. In a Jan. 24 interview with the North County Times, Jacob reportedly said she was "adamantly opposed to the power line going through the Julian area" and said it should be "as far north as possible."

SDG&E already maintains a high-voltage line close to Interstate 8 through Jacob's district. The two other routes proposed by SDG&E would follow a course to the north of Jacob's district connecting to a substation near Warner Springs east of Lake Henshaw. Jacob is quoted in that North County Times interview as saying, "it's somebody else's turn" to host a line.