Pollution Control Plan for Utility Merger Called Sound

Air pollution mitigation steps that Southern California Edison would complete if its proposed merger with San Diego Gas & Electric is approved are “technically sound,” according to testimony filed with state regulators by staff members at the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which governs air quality in the Greater Los Angeles area.

The mitigation steps are designed to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions in the Greater Los Angeles air basin that would occur if Edison were to increase the use of its power plants to supply electricity in SDG&E;’s service territory.

One part of Edison’s proposed mitigation program calls for the utility to subsidize the electrification of gas and water pumping stations that other companies operate in the Greater Los Angeles area. Those operations now are powered mainly by internal combustion engines that emit nitrogen oxides.

Edison would also subsidize the conversion of metal-melting furnaces that now burn natural gas. And, Edison would add nitrogen oxide control technology at a 215-megawatt power plant in the South Coast air basin.

Although the staff testimony that was filed last Friday with the state Public Utilities Commission indicates that Edison’s proposed mitigation plan is sound, it also states that the plan is dependent upon a final environmental impact report now being prepared for the PUC.

And, the testimony suggests that the nitrogen oxide mitigation plan is partly dependent on an analysis of individual power plants operated by Edison in Greater Los Angeles.

“Since the analysis is still being done on site-specific impacts, the applicants must be required to mitigate any such impacts which are identified,” according to the statement filed with the PUC by Barry R. Wallerstein, the air district’s director of planning.

The South Coast air district’s board of directors is scheduled to consider the proposed merger’s environmental effects during an Aug. 3 meeting, according to air district spokesman Tom Eichhorns.

Eichhorns said that the air district’s staff recommendation would probably be in line with the testimony filed last Friday with the PUC.

Edison spokesman Lew Phelps, in a statement released Wednesday, described the PUC testimony as an “agreement (that) comes on the heels of similar understandings reached recently with the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District and the San Bernardino Air Pollution Control District.”

The mitigation steps are designed to “result in removal from the air basin of greater than 50% more (nitrogen oxide) emissions” than would occur if the merger occurs, based upon a study conducted by the PUC. Phelps said. Edison’s proposed environmental protection steps would reduce hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emission.

Joel Singer, a spokesman for Toward Utility Rate Normalization, a San Francisco-based consumer group that has opposed the proposed utility merger, questioned whether the mitigation steps would benefit Edison customers. Environmental regulations would “increase the cost of cleaning up the air, and ratepayers are ultimately going to have to bear that cost,” Singer said Wednesday.