The Power of a Park
Does a power plant serve a greater public good than a park? Stocker Resources oil company wants to build a 53-megawatt plant smack in the middle of land earmarked for a Baldwin Hills park. Its application to the state Energy Commission is on a fast track under emergency orders issued by Gov. Gray Davis to ease California’s energy crisis. But Davis also signed the measure creating the Baldwin Hills Conservancy, a state agency charged with acquiring and managing the land.
The new conservancy’s goal is to stitch together 1,200 acres of open space around the existing 350-acre Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, creating a park larger than San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park or New York’s Central Park. The conservancy already owns just under half the land it needs, thanks in part to a $40-million state appropriation, again supported by Davis, to buy a parcel that had been slated for a housing development. It was the most money California has ever spent acquiring urban park land, reason enough not to now turn around and put a power plant there.
Yes, the working oil field where Stocker Resources wants to build its power plant is more industrial wasteland than pristine open space. But the conservancy’s plan is to acquire and restore this land. The proposed power plant would stand right in the middle of playing fields, a botanical garden and hiking trails--which we will now follow back to that question of public good.
The diverse and densely populated neighborhoods surrounding Baldwin Hills have less than one acre of park space per 1,000 people. That breaks down to one picnic table for every 10,000 residents.
On weekends and especially holidays, the gates to the Kenneth Hahn recreation area sometimes close before noon because the heavily used park has simply run out of space. The community’s outcry against the power plant is not just another example of not-in-my-backyard parochialism. Rather, it is an outpouring of support for a grand dream of a park in one of the most park-deprived areas of park-poor Los Angeles. The million people who live within a five-mile radius need this oasis. For the public good, the Energy Commission should say no to putting a power plant here.
