Editorial – Save Mission Trails

Because of You!

Save Mission Trails was honored with the People’s Mic Award on Saturday, August 3, 2013, at the Mission Trails Regional Park Visitor Center. YOU earned this award for your determination and resilience. Every letter written, sign waved, rally attended, comment spoken, and seat taken contributed to the CPUC denial of the SDG&E power purchase agreement and the one-year suspension of the Quail Brush Power Plant. A great big thank you to YOU!

The award was presented by new radio/online station KNSJ 89.1 FM / KNSJ.org during their launch party which celebrated San Diego’s Community Radio. KNSJ’s call letters stand for Networking for Social Justice. Please proudly view your award:

CPUC Win is Temporary – Now CEC Decision Looms

UPDATE: On April 8, 2013, Cogentrix requested the California Energy Commission (CEC) allow the corporation a one-year suspension of the Quail Brush Generation Project. The CEC approved the suspension on April 16. CEC staff and responsible agencies “shall cease work on the Application and any pending motions are stayed.” The suspension will expire April 15, 2014. During this time, Save Mission Trails will continue to build awareness of the proposed fossil fuel plant, work on coalition-building and growing the opposition, and remain alert for any threats to the land near Mission Trails. Please support our work!

With a standing room only crowd as witness, the CA Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted unanimously on March 21, 2013, that SDG&E currently has enough power, and therefore cannot purchase power from the proposed Quail Brush gas plant (QB) sited next to Mission Trails Regional Park. However, SDG&E can reapply for QB and/or other power plants by stating a need for more power to come online in 2018.
Click here to help protect the park FOR GOOD today!

Save Mission Trails now invites you to address the CEC, which is slated to deny or approve QB based on siting issues (environmental, air quality, fire, land use regulations, etc.) – irregardless of need. If the CEC votes to deny QB, our park and local communities are protected for good, not just for a couple years. But a vote to approve QB would allow for the grading and perpetual destruction surrounding our park and neighborhoods to begin. The CEC decision looms; QB must be rejected. You can help right now by urging the CEC to deny this gas plant FOR GOOD. Been there, done that? Please ask a friend or neighbor to do so. Thanks!

Below is more info on the outcome of the March 21 CPUC Vote, including the actual text of the order (NOTE #3), a video clip, articles, and quotes.

March 21 2013 CPUC Mtg

The CPUC ORDER, March 21, 2013, last page reads (NOTE #3):

“D1303029 Determining San Diego Gas & Electric Company’s Local Capacity Requirement and Granting Partial Authority to Enter into Purchase Power Tolling Agreements.
IT IS ORDERED that:
1. San Diego Gas & Electric Company’s request for authority to enter into a purchase power tolling agreement with Escondido Energy Center is approved.

2. San Diego Gas & Electric Company’s request for authority to enter into purchase power tolling agreements with Pio Pico Energy Center and Quail Brush Energy Project is denied without prejudice.

3. San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E) is authorized to meet a local capacity requirement need of up to 298 MW beginning in 2018. SDG&E shall meet this need either by issuing a new request for offers or, in the alternative, it may bring an application for approval of purchase power tolling agreements with either Pio Pico Energy Center and/or Quail Brush Power amended to coordinate with the anticipated retirement in 2018 of once-through cooling generation units. SDG&E shall adjust the commencement date, as appropriate, to coordinate with the anticipated retirement of once-through cooling generation units and other changing conditions in its service territory.

4. San Diego Gas & Electric Company’s July 9, 2012, and August 15, 2012, motions to supplement the evidentiary record are granted.

5. San Diego Gas & Electric Company shall create a Local Generation Balancing Account for the Escondido Energy Center. The Local Generation Balancing Account shall be applied to all customers in San Diego Gas & Electric Company’s service area, on an equal per kilowatt-hour basis by customer class.

6. San Diego Gas & Electric Company shall create a Local Generation Charge to recover new generation costs on a non-bypassable basis from all customers.

7. All pending motions that are not otherwise granted in this order are deemed denied.

8. Application 11-05-023 is closed.
This order is effective immediately.
Dated March 21, 2013, at San Diego, California. MICHAEL R. PEEVEY President,
MICHEL PETER FLORIO, CATHERINE J.K. SANDOVAL, MARK J. FERRON, CARLA J. PETERMAN Commissioners”

VIDEO
TV coverage on 5 news stations

A COUPLE ARTICLES
East County Magazine articles about CPUC decision and ramifications
San Diego Free Press article with comment by Sierra Club’s Pete Hasapopoulos

QUOTES FROM THE DAY – Heard at the podium…
“One step for SDG&E’s pockets, one giant step backward for mankind.”
“Sunny San Diego = a Golden Opportunity to be Solar San Diego. If Germany can do it, so can San Diego.”
“It’s a math problem: More peaker plants means needing more renewables to meet the mandates.”
“A three-year-old can walk from Quail Brush to the nearest playground. This isn’t right.”
“The choice is between need and greed.”
and from Commissioner Ferron, “This meeting has confirmed what I’ve always known about San Diegans. You are passionate, well-informed, and courteous.”

Save Mission Trails (and that means you!) continues to be passionate about our cause to stop the power plant, and to keep our hills green and our air clean!

Does Jane Dumas Know Cogentrix is Trying to Ruin Mission Trails?

Jane Dumas is a respected Kumeyaay elder who was honored on April 28th by having a day named after her at Mission Trails Regional Park. Kumeyaay is Jane’s first language and she remains one of the last living fluent speakers of the Kumeyaay language in the world. And she has spent the last 60 years of her life educating people about Kumeyaay history and culture.

After I came across this heart-warming story about Jane Dumas Day, and learned about all she has done in support of Mission Trails Regional Park, I wondered if she had been apprised of the fact that Cogentrix and Sempra Energy are trying to ruin Mission Trails by placing their unsightly, noisy power plant right next to the Equestrian Center, just north of Kumeyaay Lake.

What I have appreciated about various tribes, after having studied their history for the last 45 years of my life, and contributing to various American Indian charities, is that their spirituality is rooted in Nature. Does anyone remember the commercial featuring an Indian man weeping at the sight of pollution in the river? I am afraid that Jane Dumas will have a reaction very similar to that, when someone informs her of what is happening now, just a few months after the day she was honored at her beloved park.

“. . . WHEREAS, Jane Dumas was inducted into the San Diego County Women’s Hall of Fame in 2002 and is recognized as the catalyst for Mission Trails Regional Park acquiring a Kumeyaay-Diegueño Nation flag to fly proudly at the Kumeyaay Lake and Campground in her honor from here on out; AND

WHEREAS, Jane continues to share her expertise in medicinal plants by teaching Ethnobotany classes at Sycuan’s Kumeyaay Community College. It is her hope that the knowledge and traditions of her people will continue to be passed down from generation to generation and never be forgotten; NOW THEREFORE. . . “

. . . Jane Dumas we need you to stand with us now as we struggle to save Mission Trails Regional Park.

You Can Help Prevent This From Becoming a Reality (savemissiontrails.org)
Cowles Mountain Hike: Mission Trails Regional Park (treatyourselfsandiego.com)
La Mesa won’t weigh in on power plant (utsandiego.com)
Cogentrix Rep Presents Plan at Navajo Planning Committee (savemissiontrails.org)

Cogentrix Rep Presents Plan at Navajo Planning Committee

Lori Ziebart, Cogentrix Project Manager, appeared at the June 18th Navajo Community Planners meeting to present the Quail Brush Power Plant plans and answer the board’s questions. It was at the request of Council Member Marti Emerald that the board be apprised of the power plant issue. Chairman Allen Jones repeated several times that board had no intention of voting one way or the other on the issue and seemed perplexed (and peeved?) that the issue had come to their table. It didn’t seem to occur to him that it would be a good gesture to stand in solidarity with fellow San Diego communities, and our Santee neighbors by opposing the Quail Brush Power Plant which calls for a rezoning from Open Space to Industrial.

As you can see, the room was filled with people opposed to the power plant. Ziebart took eight minutes to present her case.

The Navajo Community Planners council, led by Chair Allen Jones (center in orange striped shirt) granted eight minutes to four members of the audience to speak out in opposition to the power plant.

Although the room was full of people who wanted to ask questions or make statements regarding the power plant – many of them Navajo community members – Mr. Jones ended the meeting claiming that everyone had to vacate the premises by 9 PM. Community members who had been silenced (in violation of the Brown Act) would have been fine with standing out in the parking lot to deliver their comments. When I mentioned this, I was told to “Be quiet and sit down!”

The woman in the white tee-shirt to the left of the flag (Lynn Murray, the Treasurer) verbally spanked me when she saw me writing comments in their “Sign-In” book. She pulled the book out of my hands saying that it was “highly inappropriate” and that the group opposing the power plant had “all acted inappropriately.” In her role as a host, she could have been much more sensitive, welcoming and kind. The same goes for the rest of the board. After all, isn’t that what a “community” group is all about? Or am I missing something?

SDG&E says it’s ready for summer heat . . AS IS!

North County Times Energy Article: June 13, 2012 (click to open article)
By ERIC WOLFF ewolff@nctimes.com

“. . .the region will lean heavily on older plants such as the 58-year-old Encina Power Station in Carlsbad, . . .”

“. . . SDG&E and regulators implemented conservation plans. But mostly, they said, the region shouldn’t have a problem.”

“[SDGE] Executives and regulators said these measures should provide enough power to the region, even if there are sustained heat waves —- and even if one of the older, creakier plants should break down.”

‘ “At this stage, we’re well-prepared to deal with the various contingencies,” said Robert Weisenmiller, chairman of the California Energy Commission.’

AND

More evidence that QB PP is not needed courtesy of Bill Powers: A document was filed with the CPUC by another energy company (NRG) on 6/24/11. Excerpt below:

“NRG submits that several of the assumptions presented in SDG&E’s application, especially those regarding the Encina Power Station and the Cabrillo II Peakers, do not reflect the current commercial status. In these comments, NRG:

1) Corrects the presumption that the existing Encina Power Station will be retired by December 31, 2017 as referenced in the CA 316(b) Once Through Cooling (“OTC”) policy. Encina’s retirement is not within the CPUC’s or SDG&E’s ability to determine;

2) Provides evidence that the existing Encina Power Station can operate indefinitely to provide critical reliable capacity and optionality until the proposed repowering with the new Carlsbad Energy Center project – a plant with an efficient, rapid response load-following technology that has many environmental benefits including significantly lower emissions – is needed at the Encina Power Station site; and

3) Emphasizes that the Encina Power Station site has transmission, infrastructure, and timing advantages for repowering which mitigate development risks associated with building a power plant to reliably serve SDG&E; and

4) Clarifies that the timing of retiring the Cabrillo II peaking turbines is dependent not upon “air permit restrictions” but upon SDGE’s decision not to renew the site leases and notes the importance of these units to various non-SDG&E load serving entities (“LSE”) and the CAISO.

NRG respectfully urges the Commission to evaluate the timing of the projects presented in this application vis-à-vis the timing of the Carlsbad Energy Center in light of the comments offered herein.”

Sunset Silhouette, Mission Trails

A very magical time at Mission Trails is the Golden Hour – just before sunset. Every one of your senses comes fully alive. The scent of sage, the sound of a hawk’s cry, the feel of a warm breeze, the beautiful scenic views that all come together to create a spiritual experience unsullied by industrial cacophony. Mission Trails has been set aside as Open Space for now and for our future. We who love and frequent Mission Trails believe that East Elliott land parcels adjoining our park should also remain Open Space and not be rezoned to Heavy Industrial. If you feel the same way, send your messages opposing the Quail Brush Power Plant to the San Diego Planning Commission and San Diego City Council Members.

Send your note of opposition today RE: 11-AFC-03, Quail Brush Power Plant, City of San Diego Project #270282 to:

planningcommission@sandiego.gov

CEC Project Manager
Eric Solorio ESolorio@energy.state.ca.us

CEC Commissioners:
Karen Douglas <kldougla@energy.ca.gov>
Carla Peterman <cpeterma@energy.ca.gov>

Mayor Jerry Sanders JerrySanders@sandiego.gov

SD City Council
Anthony Young <anthonyyoung@sandiego.gov>
Carl DeMaio <CarlDeMaio@sandiego.gov>
David Alvarez <davidalvarez@sandiego.gov>
Kevin Faulconer <kevinfaulconer@sandiego.gov>
Lori Zapf <loriezapf@sandiego.gov>
Marti Emerald <martiemerald@sandiego.gov>
Sherri Lightner <SherriLightner@sandiego.gov>
Todd Gloria <toddgloria@SANDIEGO.GOV>

Kids Love Mission Trails

A lot of curious children (and their parents) showed up to visit Mission Trails Regional Park on “Explore Mission Trails Day” this past weekend.

Looking to the future, this little girl happily signed the Children’s Petition to Stop the Quail Brush Power Plant and “Save Mission Trails.”

Hikers set out on a little hike. The power plant would be visible if they turned to the right, on the other side of Highway 52.

Kids of all ages had a chance to meet some of the critters that live in Mission Trails, like this barn owl.

Mission Trails is beloved by children, and the child in all of us. Let’s keep it that way!

If you oppose the construction of the Quail Brush Power Plant right next to Mission Trails, send your note of opposition today to:

Send your note of opposition today RE: 11-AFC-03, Quail Brush Power Plant, City of San Diego Project #270282 to:

planningcommission@sandiego.gov

CEC Project Manager
Eric Solorio ESolorio@energy.state.ca.us

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