Communities Fighting $270-Million Power Line
ROMOLAND, Calif. — It has all the trappings of a parochial, not-in-my-backyard brouhaha: anxiety over property values, the environment and local business.
But the subject of this particular debate--a proposed $270-million electricity transmission line starting in this scrubby outpost of chicken wire, strip mall churches and tumbleweeds--has ominous implications for all of California.
Effectively using California’s energy crisis as ammunition, San Diego Gas & Electric Co. wants to build the 500,000-volt line through 31 miles of bluffs, parks, wilderness and neighborhoods in southwest Riverside County.
That has prompted a boisterous response from area residents, who have countered with door-to-door campaigns and picket lines--and challenged the very notion, an article of faith in the energy industry, that additional power lines are needed to dig the state out of its energy crisis.
“We’re not human beings to them,” said Loma Bosinger, co-chairwoman of Save Southwest Riverside County, formed in response to the SDG&E; proposal. “We’re nuisances. We’re red tape.”
SDG&E; and other energy companies say that although the lack of generators in California is the most pressing component of the crisis, a lack of power transmission lines also is a key contributor. During the state’s first round of rolling blackouts in January, Northern and Central California suffered largely because of a transmission bottleneck in the Central Valley.
The gaps in generation and transmission mean that California’s once-sturdy energy grid has become a fussy, delicate contraption, said Jim Avery, SDG&E;’s senior vice president of fuel and power operations.
“If one part gets out of balance, it can take down the whole system,” Avery said.
Neighborhoods along the proposed route of the so-called Valley Rainbow Interconnect, through dusty Hemet and the wine country of Temecula, aren’t convinced that California’s situation is quite so dire.
They point out that SDG&E; first pitched the line last summer by saying that it was needed to provide power to the San Diego area--because state energy officials believe that demand in the region will begin exceeding current deliveries in 2004, which would mean blackouts. More recently, though, SDG&E; has begun pitching the new transmission line as a system to export electricity from new generators in the San Diego area to the rest of the state power grid.
SDG&E; insists that those two arguments do not conflict. But residents have found the company’s position disingenuous at best. And what seemed a neighborhood tiff has become something more, widely seen as a harbinger of scuffles to come as California confronts its power crisis.
The state already has 26,000 miles of electric transmission lines. And in the next four years--according to the California Independent System Operator, the agency that oversees the state grid--74 transmission-line construction projects are expected so energy companies can meet state and federal reliability standards.
More lines will be added purely for economic gain, said Armando Perez, director of grid planning for Cal-ISO, and similar battles are expected to dog many of those proposals.
“There has always been, and always will be, a tension between the proponents’ need for lines and locating it so it doesn’t have a terrible impact on neighboring communities,” said Mark Mihaly, a San Francisco lawyer who will represent residents in upcoming hearings about the placement of the transmission line.
“But what you will see is that the power companies are going to be using the energy crisis, trying to hitch their wagon to that train. You’ll see it again and again.”
In coming months, politics may further complicate the debate.
In Washington, the task force developing a national energy strategy--headed by Vice President Dick Cheney--is reportedly weighing a move to give federal authorities the power of eminent domain to acquire private land for new electrical transmission lines.
And in Sacramento, Assemblyman Dennis Hollingsworth (R-Murrieta) has proposed a bill that would require state energy officials and utilities to use public land for transmission lines before they would be allowed to acquire private property. That bill, which awaits votes in two Assembly committees in coming weeks, targets not only future transmission lines but the proposed line in southern Riverside County, Hollingsworth said.
“I object to the fact that private property is looked at as the path of least resistance,” he said.
In Riverside County, community leaders say they have a series of concerns about the SDG&E; proposal. Some are worried that the line will mar the picturesque bluffs of the region, which could in turn hurt its ability to draw tourists, wine lovers and nature lovers. That could drive down property values, they fear. Others are concerned about local businesses, from golf courses that are close to the proposed route of the transmission system to hot-air balloon companies that would have to steer clear of high-voltage lines.
In Hemet, residents are enraged that the transmission line apparently will cut through parkland near the new Diamond Valley Lake reservoir. A series of parks and nature preserves were supposed to be Hemet’s “payment,” of sorts, for welcoming the $2-billion reservoir, the largest in Southern California. Now, many--including Metropolitan Water District officials--are afraid that the proposed lines could cleave those areas in two.
This kind of debate will become increasingly common, said Severin Borenstein, a business professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and director of the UC Energy Institute.
“There is a tremendous need for transmission,” Borenstein said. “This is definitely part of the problem, and it will be an increasing part of the problem. It is only going to get worse, because we are going to build a lot of transmission lines--and nobody wants them in their backyard.”
On Thursday, Bosinger and two community activists leading the charge against the Riverside County transmission line met at what would be its northern terminus--Southern California Edison’s Valley substation in Romoland. The group stopped under a massive power pole, the same type of equipment they say will poison the vistas of southern Riverside County if they don’t block SDG&E;’s expansion plans.
Power lines already in place crackled overhead.
“God, listen to that,” Bosinger said. “I’ve never been this close to one before.”
“Smells like electricity to me,” said Barbara Wilder, Save Southwest Riverside County’s other co-chairwoman.
“See, this isn’t about us not wanting this in our backyard,” Wilder said, craning her neck to see the top of the towering power pole. “This is all for one and one for all. We don’t want this in anybody’s backyard.”
Avery, the SDG&E; vice president, said there is little choice in the matter.
“There has to be a line built,” he said. “I don’t think there are any alternatives.”
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