Edison Halts Plan to Sell Coastal Wetlands
Responding to the state energy crisis, Southern California Edison has halted proceedings on the sale of 307 acres of coastal land near the Ormond Beach and Mandalay power plants, and is considering the sites for new electricity generators.
The move scuttles, at least temporarily, plans to preserve the areas as wetlands and could derail a huge redevelopment project in south Oxnard.
Edison--ordered by the state in 1995 to dispose of excess property--notified the California Coastal Conservancy on Friday that it was ending negotiations to sell the two oceanfront properties because it wants to keep them for “utility purposes.”
Edison also took off the market last week a 1,700-acre desert site east of Barstow.
“These properties are in prime locations for potential generation sites,” said Peter M. Lersey, director of Edison’s divestiture program. “We’re in kind of a holding pattern at this point. We felt it was not prudent to go further with any sales until it’s clear what needs to be done.”
Chaos from California’s failed energy deregulation prompted the Legislature and Gov. Gray Davis last week to approve the sale of $10 billion in bonds so the state can enter the energy business to assure a stable, affordable supply of electricity. And now it appears the rules forcing Edison to sell its properties could be reversed.
So Edison considers the Ventura County parcels more valuable as power plant sites than they were as excess land to be sold for $15 million to the Coastal Conservancy.
“We don’t want to do anything now and then in a month or so everybody says, ‘Why did you sell that off?’ ” Lersey said. “We’re taking a little time to let things settle down.”
Both the Mandalay and Ormond Beach parcels are large enough to allow construction of plants of considerable size, Lersey said. Those plants might be built by Edison, the state or by a supplier, such as Houston-based Reliant Energy, which bought the Mandalay and Ormond Beach generators for $81 million in 1998 as part of state-ordered deregulation.
Those two plants already produce a maximum of 2,000 megawatts of electricity, enough for 2 million homes and about eight times the number in Ventura County. And transmission lines from Ormond Beach and Mandalay can deliver about twice that much energy if new generators are constructed, said local Reliant manager Tom Snowdon.
“We would certainly be interested in looking at the possibility,” Snowdon said. “We’d want to see how this folds into other opportunities in California and the West.”
However, Snowdon said, air quality and other environmental rules may still make it difficult for a company to build new plants along the coast.
Edison’s 276 acres at Ormond Beach encompass an obsolete fuel tank farm, wetlands and coastline that could be converted into a large new power plant, while the 31-acre tract at Mandalay near McGrath State Beach is large enough for a small plant, Lersey said.
Both parcels are already zoned for utilities and have existing rights of way for towering transmission lines that are difficult to acquire, Lersey said. The sites also have access to seawater for plant cooling, a big plus, he said.
By pulling the Ormond Beach property off the market, Edison at least delays Oxnard’s most ambitious development proposal, a 1,404-acre planned community north of Ormond Beach. With a proposed 1,500 homes and possibly a private university, the Ormond Beach project is supported by city officials as a way to revive beleaguered south Oxnard while preserving hundreds of acres of wetlands along the county’s longest stretch of private undeveloped beach.
“It really throws a monkey wrench into things,” developer Dave O. White said. Key questions now are how much more land will be developed by Edison near the old Ormond plant and how a new plant would work with any college and housing tract nearby, he said.
Peter Brand, the Coastal Conservancy’s point man in Ventura County, said after many months of negotiation with Edison, he had thought a final deal for the Ormond Beach and Mandalay acreage was close.
Officials of the conservancy, which preserves valuable wildlife and farmland areas, consider the Ventura County coast, including Mandalay and Ormond Beach, part of an extraordinary wetlands habitat.
Brand said the parties had found a way around a final sticking point--Edison’s insistence that it not be liable for any pollution the state might find on its Ormond site.
“That was the only contractual issue after Sept. 1,” Brand said. “It has been extraordinarily difficult to resolve.”
Now the Coastal Conservancy can only wait and see how things play out, Brand said. A new plant could be built on a small number of acres at Ormond, he said, leaving plenty for wetlands.
“We have to be patient and very vigilant at the same time,” Brand said. “This might still work out.”
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