Neighbors Worry About Effects of Utilities’ Merger : Environment: Plants in Redondo Beach and El Segundo would increase output of electricity--and pollution--if power companies merge.

For business mavens, Southern California Edison’s proposed merger with San Diego Gas & Electric Co. means Edison could become the country’s largest operating electrical utility.

For Richard Gould, who lives across the street from Edison’s Redondo Beach power station, the merger’s significance lies closer to home.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have more soot, more smog, and the noise is going to be worse,” Gould said. “Already, I have to close my windows at night, and I still hear the noise. When I get home from work, I can’t go out on the deck and sit down without wiping the chairs down.”

Under the merger proposal, now before the California Public Utilities Commission, electricity generation would be shifted from older San Diego power plants to more efficient Edison stations in communities including Redondo Beach and El Segundo.

Though the plan would mean more pollution from power plants in the South Coast Air Basin, Edison says it would more than offset that effect by using financial incentives to persuade users of stationary internal combustion engines to switch to electric motors.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District signed off on Edison’s strategy Aug. 3, reasoning that on an overall basis, air quality in the basin would not suffer. But locally, there is concern that what is true for the entire basin may not be the case in communities with Edison plants.

“The Edison company speaks in averages,” said Thomas O’Leary, a member of an ad hoc citizens’ committee studying noise pollution in Redondo Beach. “What the residents of Redondo Beach must know is, ‘What will happen to our city?’ Who the hell cares about averages? To us, that means nothing.”

According to figures supplied by Edison, the Redondo Beach facility--under the merger plan--would supply about 16% more power over the next 10 years, whereas the El Segundo plant’s production would increase by about 44%.

In a draft environmental impact report prepared earlier this year, consultants for the utilities commission identified several environmental problems that the merger would cause in the Los Angeles area if no mitigation steps are taken.

Among these problems are air pollution and, in the case of coastal plants, an increase in the number of fish that will be killed when the power stations draw in additional seawater for use as a coolant.

Edison has proposed to offset the fish-kill problem by restoring wetlands and by building artificial reefs or other means of improving marine habitat. The company says it can more than make up for the air pollution problem by encouraging other polluters to switch to electric power from internal combustion engines totaling 36,000 horsepower.

The company would provide financial incentives to fuel the engine conversion program and would target motors used to power water and oil extraction pumps, according to company spokesman Lewis Phelps.

“For every pound of additional emissions produced because of the merger in the Los Angeles area, the mitigation measures will remove 1 1/2 pounds,” Phelps said.

Phelps says the Redondo Beach plant’s nitrogen oxide emissions under the merger plan would amount to 1,294 tons in 1991, compared with 1,163 tons if the merger does not take place. At the El Segundo plant, he says, the proposal would result in 328 tons of the smog-producing emissions next year as opposed to 143 tons without the merger.

Phelps points out that a supplementary environmental report by the Public Utilities Commission says the merger would not significantly increase air pollution in communities surrounding the plants.

The report also says that noise from the power stations, another concern of cities with Edison plants, would not increase in direct proportion to the boost in each facility’s electricity generation.

But the Public Utilities Commission has not provided comprehensive environmental impact information for all of the communities where Edison plants would increase their power generation. Instead, the commission studied those cities in which it believed environmental effects would be greatest.

In Redondo Beach and El Segundo, which were not studied in detail, officials and residents say they will take a hard look at the environmental information that the utilities commission will use to decide the merger issue.

“We have a number of heavy-duty utilities near this city already, including Hyperion (a Los Angeles sewage plant) as well as the electrical generating station,” said Kendra Morries, El Segundo’s planning director. “We also have LAX on our northern border. This is a community that is going to take very seriously any increase in noise, vibrations or odors.”

So far, neither El Segundo nor Redondo Beach has formally taken a position on the merger issue, which is expected to be decided by the utilities commission before the end of the year.

But the Redondo Beach City Council plans to discuss the issue at its Sept. 18 meeting. And a group of city residents is organizing a drive to persuade the council to oppose the proposal.

Marvin (Bud) Moran, leader of a coalition of condominium owners who live near Catalina Avenue south of the plant, says his group is gathering signatures for a petition opposing the merger.

Moran says members of his group have thus far not been directly affected by soot or noise from the Edison facility, situated at Harbor Drive and Herondo Street. But he says the complaints of those who live closer to the facility are frightening.

“If they have this merger and they fire up more (generating) units, then the perimeter of the problem area will spread, and we’ll have the same problems as the people close in,” he said. “We want it proven conclusively that this will not affect our environment.”

Should Redondo Beach and El Segundo oppose the merger, they will be joining several other agencies and organizations already fighting the proposal, including the state attorney general’s office and the American Lung Assn. of California.

Among the arguments the opponents are using is that the plan breaches anti-trust laws. Opponents also charge that Edison’s mitigation plan involving engine conversion is in fact a highly profitable program that the company planned to carry out in any case to expand its customer base.

Said Michael Strumwasser, a special assistant to Atty. Gen. John K. Van De Kamp: “It’s the electric utility version of your child saying he’ll hold his breath until you give in.”

State Sen. Herschel Rosenthal, chairman of the Senate’s Energy and Public Utilities Committee, says he will hold public hearings to determine whether the AQMD acted appropriately in approving Edison’s mitigation plan.

“This really ought to be out in the open,” said Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles).

For local residents following the merger issue, however, the chief concern is how the proposal will affect local conditions.

“I live at the beach because I have a sense that the air quality is better than in the San Fernando Valley, where I used to live,” said Greg Diete, resident of a condominium complex one mile south of Edison’s Redondo Beach plant. “So I’m not looking forward to them polluting the air any more than they are now.”

EFFECT OF MERGER ON SOUTH BAY PLANTS

Southern California Edison predicts that a proposed merger with San Diego Gas & Electric Co. would increase the gigawatt hours of electricity produced each year by its Redondo Beach and El Segundo plants. A gigawatt is 1 billion watts. According to Edison, 3,000 gigawatt hours is sufficient to provide a year’s worth of electricity to 500,000 homes. REDONDO BEACH FACILITY Gigawatt hours produced yearly after merger 1991: 2,943 2000: 3,771 2007: 3,817 Gigawatt hours produced yearly with no merger 1991: 2,644 2000: 3,257 2007: 3,701 EL SEGUNDO FACILITY Gigawatt hours produced yearly after merger 1991: 887 2000: 1,840 2007: 1,415 Gigawatt hours produced yearly with no merger 1991: 440 2000: 1,277 2007: 1,179 Source: Southern California Edison