Community – Page 5 – Save Mission Trails

Rally Reminder! Tierrasanta Saturday 9/15 4-6 PM

Join the SMT Rally – Sat, Sept 15 – 4-6 pm at the intersection of Santo Rd. and Tierrasanta Blvd. Wear orange and bring a sign (or borrow one of ours) to grow awareness of the power plant among the Tierrasanta community and encourage opposition letters/phone/emails/fax to the San Diego councilmembers. SMT T-shirts available by donation at the event. Follow up with the free concert (below)!

Tierrasanta Concert in the Park- Sat, Sept 15 – 6-9 pm – Following the rally, we’ll have fun at Tierrasanta’s final summer concert (“High Tides” with reggae/roots/ska music) while doing public outreach and community building. – Tierrasanta Recreation Center

Follow up with a SMT Community Outreach Meeting –
Tues, Sept 18 and 25 – 6:30-7:45 pm at Tierrasanta Library, 4985 La Cuenta Dr, San Diego 92124 Help defeat QB and save Mission Trails and adjoining communities! Get status reports/info, meet group members, and volunteer. See you there!

New Design is NOT Helpful. It’s Harmful.

Quail Brush Power Plant next to Mission Trails Park

CoGentrix made modifications to the Quail Brush Generation Project to “improve” its visual impact. CoGentrix lowered the towers to 70 feet from 100. The images below are realistic and based on the revised power plant design. The renderings include its new placement, graded retaining wall, drainage pits, storage units and a 10-foot security wall. The placement of the power plant sits clearly on the top of a ridge and is not obscured by any other ridge from the Park. The hills will require extensive grading. Click on the images to see them larger. The structures were rendered to scale using Google’s 3D rendering program. The towers’ emissions were rendered in Photoshop.

Lowering the stacks brings the pollution closer to the park, schools, and our lungs. As you can see, the power plant would still be a nasty wound on our park and community. Multiple view points were included so you can clearly understand how huge this abomination is. Click on a power plant image below to see the gallery larger.

Power Plant from Mission Trails Park near the equestrian center

Park Entrance — Welcome to the Camping entrance in Mission Trails Park!

Power-plant-model-sideview — Power Plant looking south east

What can I do RIGHT NOW to Defeat Quail Brush?

While many folks were vacationing this summer, you can bet that CoGentrix was NOT. Certainly they were “wining and dining” with San Diego City Councilmembers to promote their ill-conceived fossil fuel plant in our open space and community.

Well, San Diego City Councilmembers need to hear from us, too! We are the ones who will be affected 24/7 by pollution, noise, property value loss, and detriment to Mission Trails Regional Park – set aside for recreation and wildlife preservation, not heavy industrial. The San Diego City Council will have a public hearing Monday, September 24, 2 pm with CoGentrix. (Attend! Participate! Save the date and click here for updates.) Your statement of opposition via phone call, letter,email, or fax are needed TODAY (just a few sentences “I oppose Quail Brush Generation Project because…” is fine) to the San Diego City Councilmembers. If you email, include the CA Energy Commission (CEC) via a cc to e.solorio@energy.ca.state.us.

-Live in the City of San Diego? Be sure to tell your councilmember that you are a voting constituent. (Find your councilmember by zip code here.)
-Is Tierrasanta your home as well? Contact your Tierrasanta Community Councilmembers too. (And click here for upcoming Tierrasanta events.)
-Live in San Carlos, Allied Gardens, Del Cerro, Grantville? Navajo Community Planners need to hear directly from you.
-In East County? Yes, write the San Diego City Councilmembers again and remind them that there’s an overcapacity of energy – no need for the plant, and the site is correctly zoned open space as part of Mission Trails expansion area and a high fire-hazard zone.

Thanks to you we can keep Mission Trails and East Elliott green and our air clean!

Rally Reminder – Sat. 8/18 4-6pm Tierrasanta, Join the Fight!

Our beautiful park and healthy communities are worth saving!

Rally Tierrasanta citizens to learn about and help stop the ill-conceived siting of a fossil fuel gas power plant in a high fire-hazard zone near their park and community. Join Save Mission Trails volunteers at the intersection of Santo Rd. and Clairemont Mesa Blvd. from 4-6:00 PM in Tierrasanta, Saturday, August 18. Bring a sign (or borrow one of ours) and wear something orange!

Then from 6-9:00 pm join us at Tierrasanta’s Concert in the Park, ”Y3K” 80s Rock n’ Roll, at the Tierrasanta Recreation Center at 11220 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. Support a great cause and have some fun too!

Game On! CoGentrix Appeals – What You Can Do Now

As expected, CoGentrix has appealed the Planning Commission’s Denial to Initiate an Amendment of the City’s General Plan and East Elliott Community Plan. The appeal was submitted to the San Diego City Council on August 2, 2012. Touting the power plant’s purported “energy, economic, and environmental benefits,” CoGentrix is asking S.D. City Council to approve initiation of the Plan Amendments to “allow for the development and operation of the proposed Project.”

Click to see what you can do

We say, “Benefits for whom?” It’s CERTAINLY NOT beneficial to the local communities, Tierrasanta, Navajo, El Cajon, La Mesa, and especially Santee, who will suffer worse air quality and subsequent health issues, decreased property values and ensuing reduced tax income for local governments, noise pollution, visual blight, and diminished civic pride. It’s NOT beneficial to the citizens of San Diego who value the region’s gem, Mission Trails, and show off its impressive views and open spaces to our out-of-state friends. NOT to the park users out getting exercise and enjoying some respite from urbanity nor for the scouts on campouts, moms and dads walking with strollers, hikers, mountain bikers, equestrians. NOT beneficial to the area’s indigenous, and some endangered, plants and animals and the San Diego River watershed. And NOT for the SDG&E ratepayers who will pay the $600 million cost of the plant, per the California Energy Commission (CEC).

Energy benefits? We prefer conservation, energy efficiency, rooftop solar in our sun-drenched communities, grid-scale clean energy storage technology, and other forward-thinking solutions for reliable energy – which by the way, we already have and is NOT threatened, even with the possible permanent closure of San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant, per the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

We say don’t open the door for re-zoning this precious Open Space to Industrial, especially for a natural gas power plant in a high fire hazard area. Let’s all do what we can to protect this special area and keep our communities safe:

While San Diego City Council is at recess for the month of August, we are NOT!

Keep up-to-date of public meetings and hearings. Attend as many as you can.
Find out which candidates on November’s ballot oppose the power plant. Support their campaigns. Vote.
Voice your specific objections and concerns about Quail Brush to the San Diego City Council members and to the California Energy Commission (CEC).
Write letters to the editor of SD area media: paper and online. Read and post comments online, and comment on Save Mission Trails posts, too!
Donate and/or volunteer to Save Mission Trails to help us continue the fight.
Stay informed via CEC List Server Website (submit your email in their right-hand column).
Tell your friends, families, and coworkers about this issue and ask for their support, starting with their signing the online petition and signing up as a follower (click tab on bottom right).