Planners Approve Co-Generation Plant in Newhall

Despite opposition from residents, the Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission Thursday unanimously approved a permit to allow construction and operation of a power plant in an oil field in Newhall’s Placerita Canyon.

Tenneco Oil Co. plans to build a $35-million gas-burning steam generator--or co-generation facility--that would produce both steam and electricity for oil drilling near the junction of Placerita Canyon Road and Sierra Highway.

But homeowners in the rural area contend that the plant would spew nitrogen oxides and other harmful pollutants into the air in their neighborhood, causing health and environmental hazards.

Immediately after Thursday’s meeting, the Placerita Canyon Property Owners Assn. began preparing an appeal to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, said Michael McEntee, attorney for the homeowners.

The commission had approved the permit after Tenneco offered to help pay for air-pollution control to reduce emissions at the nearby Newhall Oil Refinery. Tenneco agreed to pay up to $500,000 for equipment to lessen the pollution emitted from the refinery, which would offset potential increases in pollution from the co-generation plant, said Mel Ehrlich, attorney for Tenneco.

“We believe this was the very best project we could offer to the community to actually take some emissions out of the air and still allow us to continue our project,” Ehrlich said.

The homeowner group maintains that Tenneco’s offer would not begin to solve Placerita Canyon’s air-quality problems because it does not take into account future increases in pollution, McEntee said.

“In short, the offer by Tenneco to fix Newhall’s problem has no relevance to the creation of a new source of air pollution,” McEntee said.

In April, county hearing officer David Owen had denied Tenneco’s request for the permit because the land was not zoned for power plants. Owen also concluded that the plant’s emissions would cause “an increase to the local air-pollution levels in an area that already has high air-pollution levels from other oil-production sources.”

But the conditional-use permit approved Thursday overrules Owen, allowing the property to be used for the co-generation plant.

The association, which contends that the co-generation plant would threaten the health of area residents and hurt vegetation and animal life, had asked that an environmental impact report be done before any action was taken, McEntee said.

“We felt that an EIR would encompass all the necessary problems and psychological effects--and that was not done,” said Laurene Weste, vice president of the association. “It was just basically glossed over.”

At Thursday’s meeting, the association’s representatives gave commissioners a petition with 105 signatures from elderly residents living less than a mile from the proposed facility. The residents have complained of respiratory problems from existing pollution, Weste said.

“This isn’t standard development, this isn’t a housing tract, or building a new road. . . . It’s what we breathe, it’s our life,” Weste said.

Weste said another co-generation plant is already under construction by Applied Energy Systems “just spitting distance” from the proposed Tenneco site and is scheduled to be completed next year. “We’ve already paid our dues,” she said.

However, Tenneco has maintained that the agreement leading to approval of the co-generation plant will, in the long run, improve the overall air quality in the county, said Jerry Kelly, Tenneco project manager.

A master plan developed by the South Coast Air Quality Management District requires Tenneco to ensure that pollutants emitted elsewhere in the Los Angeles Basin be reduced, Kelly said. Only after Tenneco established agreements with other plants was its permit approved.

Furthermore, Tenneco officials maintain that the Santa Clarita Valley’s air problems are primarily the result of airborne pollutants that originate in other parts of basin and drift into the valley, Kelly said.

In response to homeowners’ aesthetic concerns, Tenneco also proposed planting trees and landscaping around the plant, to be built on a 4.3-acre site within a 20,000-acre oil field. The measures would hide everything except the 60-foot-tall smokestacks, said Richard Frazier, supervising regional planner for the county.

Residents had also complained about the noisiness of the proposed 42-megawatt co-generation system, which would be powered by gas turbines similar to jet engines used in aircraft.

But the oil company has agreed to take measures to reduce the noise, according to Tenneco attorney Greg Brown.

“It’s going to be as quiet as the quietest time of night to the local residents,” Brown said.