Sunrise Powerlink: A Question of Options

5/11/2008 - Ramona Sentinal
By Diane Conklin

In the best of all possible worlds, there should not be a choice between switching on a light and the destruction of the beauty and majesty of the natural world. Mostly, people don't think of electricity. Like the oaks, the chaparral, the wildflowers and all of the animals that inhabit the world of Ramona, people take electricity and nature's gifts for granted. Perhaps this is the root of the problem. We are so blessed, we forget. And that's when we risk losing what we have for today, for tomorrow, for forever. But in fact, we do not have to sacrifice the natural world to get our electricity, though that's not what San Diego Gas & Electric would have us believe.

The titanic battle (and it is a titanic battle) over the proposed, and so-called, "Sunrise Powerlink" transmission line that San Diego Gas & Electric wants to bulldoze through the entire east-west breadth of San Diego County, from Borrego Springs to the sea, is essentially about what we value and what we don't. The fact that this line will destroy pristine vistas in California largest state park in our backyard desert – the Anza Borrego Desert State Park -- may not mean much to people who have never been there and don't relate. But it means a great deal to all of the other state parks in California because if this happens – who's next?

The plowing of the line through the magnificent Santa Ysabel Valley would be justification enough to oppose this project for those who find its achingly beautiful presence a joy for residents and visitors alike. Think again about the spoilage, the destruction, the disregard – the driving along a line of towers if this project is built.

Those of us in Ramona know that our valley also has its mountains and canyons and a landscape to die for. All around us there are these gorgeous views and special places where we live our country life, away from city cares. We pay a price to live here – we commute and live in a far too isolated fashion for, obviously, the majority of people in San Diego. But the valley holds us in place and embraces us with its beauty all around.

Now imagine transmission lines lined up along our own mountaintops, through neighborhoods, in unspoiled valleys, crossing as they march to the sea the preserved open spaces we paid for – Barnett Ranch, Boulder Oaks Preserve. Is this what we paid for? Is this how we preserve our natural world for our community's children and their children and so on? What will they say about us, should we let this happen? I wouldn't want to hear.

And, we have to remember this is just the proposed route. SDG&E has many routes, many tricks up their big sleeve, to fool us. To make us think we won't suffer but someone else might. Or, if we do, they'll fix it, they'll underground or whatever. Well, guess what, it's not their choice. It's our choice, through the California Public Utilities Commission, because the commission will make the decision, not SDG&E.

And then the line has other problems. We know what they are. We suffered through another great fire, courtesy of SDG&E's power lines that ignited, according to CAL FIRE, the Witch Creek Fire that burned thousands of acres of Ramona and beyond. We, who suffered through the greatest conflagration in the known history of the state – the Cedar Fire in 2003 – once again found our neighbors and friends homeless, burned out, and destroyed – our environment decimated.

Now, hold on, SDG&E will say. Those fires in the October firestorm were not caused by the big lines. Yes, that's true. The reported 69kV line that was said to have started the Witch Fire in media accounts is not a 230kV. But what the company doesn't tell you is that two 230kV lines did start fires in December of 2006 and July of 2007 on or near Camp Pendleton and reported by the company as induced by wind. Luckily those fires were contained, but will we always be so lucky again and again for the 40-year life of this power line?

Don't get me wrong. The company has some fine, good people working there. We depend on them for our electricity, which in turn makes our modern life possible. Without it, we couldn't live the way we do. But SDG&E, we have to remember, is private company, not a publicly owned utility. Remember Monopoly? The utilities weren't hot property. Yes, they paid, but only a little and if you were smart you sold them. That's because, under the old rules, they were public utilities.

Today's utility and energy picture is far different. Utilities are hot properties. They have a commodity we cannot live without and they know it. So, that's why SEMPRA, SDG&E's parent company, wants this line. Those of us fighting the line for up to three years now, and there are many of us, have a good hunch that this line may carry electricity generated by gas shipped into the SEMPRA/Shell Oil new LNG facility north of Ensenada in Baja from around the Pacific Rim. That gas could be shipped 120 miles north to Mexicali where SEMPRA already has one (and could build more) electricity generation plant that exports electricity into the U.S. We are talking the longest extension cord you can imagine.

SDG&E has consistently stated that the potential expandability of this project is an important project objective and has also stated that it is prudent to recognize the future possibility of a 500 kV connection to the Southern California Edison system. While the company says there are no current plans to make this connection, that's a lucrative market up north of San Diego and why not want to ship electricity made in Mexico, without our environmental oversight or protective labor laws, to American households who want the juice over the "Sunrise Powerlink"?

No, there is something fishy about "Sunrise Powerlink". A major renewables technology the line would rely on isn't up and running; six prototypes exist in Sandia Lab in New Mexico and haven't ever been used in the tens of thousands to do what SDG&E says they will do. And even a 7,000 plus page Draft Environmental Impact Report couldn't do the job of describing all of the problems this line will entail. Our county is too big, its beauty and diversity too unimaginable to be contained on paper.

We don't need the power line to tap into the abundance of sun, with which we are so blessed, to power our lives because the technological changes are upon us. We have options. But SDG&E knows that too. If we go solar, where do they go? But, you know, honestly, that's not our problem.

Diane Conklin is a Ramona resident and spokesperson of the Mussey Grade Road Alliance. She represents the Alliance as an intervenor in the CPUC proceedings on the Sunrise Powerlink. The Alliance fire testimony can be accessed at: www.mbartek.com; the Alliance Phase 1 brief can be seen at www.nusseygraderoad.org She is also the coordinator of CUSP, Communities United for Sensible Power, a coalition of communities around San Diego County opposed to the project.

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