Tag: Cogentrix

CPUC Vote Delayed AGAIN – Intensified Lobbying Threatens our Park and Communities

The CA Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) vote on Quail Brush was rescheduled from Dec. 20 to Jan. 10, and now postponed again to Thursday, JANUARY 24. Meanwhile, Cogentrix has intensified its lobbying. Top executives, their high-priced lobbyist, and lawyers met on December 12 behind closed doors with the Commissioners’ staff in an effort to sway the upcoming vote.

Remember David and Goliath. Keep up the good fight! It is imperative we continue to grow the CPUC email campaign. Please commit to recruit AT LEAST TWO of your friends and family to email TODAY. Comment via Save Mission Trails with our letter and easy instructions. (The Sierra Club link will be repaired and posted soon.)

Or comment with your own words. Email public.advisor@cpuc.ca.gov
Include in the Subject Line: A1105023 – Support the Proposed Decision.
Be sure to INCLUDE YOUR NAME, ADDRESS, CITY, ZIP to be counted.

A FEW TALKING POINTS . . . 

  • The opposition’s energy planning and requirement claims are based on grossly inaccurate assumptions and estimates made on ten-year-old data that project unrealistically high energy needs.
  • Their out-of-date estimates ignore California’s massive and successful recent efforts to conserve energy, efforts that are being paid for by State tax payers, and that are involving the participation of thousands of our citizens.
  • As a result of widespread commercial and residential energy conservation, today we do not have the hyper-inflated energy requirements that the opposition claims as the necessity for plants such as Quail Brush.
  • Bottom Line: Support the CPUC Proposed Decision for A1105023.

GOOD NEWS!! Save Mission Trails is one of the East County Magazine’s Newsmakers of the Year for 2012. Congratulations, everyone! (Note: While the blurb mentions that TWO CPUC officials have deemed the plant unnecessary, the entire commission must uphold this decision on January 24 to stop Quail Brush.)

CPUC Decision Postponed to January 10 – Have you sent your letter yet?

The California Public Utitlies Commission (CPUC) vote on the SDG&E application for Quail Brush and two other gas plants in San Diego County has been rescheduled to January 10. This gives us time to get more Letters to the CPUC supporting their proposed decision rejecting these fossil fuel plants as not needed!

Have you emailed the CPUC? The more people who voice support of the CPUC draft decision, the better. You can count on Cogentrix and the other corporate lobbyists to be pushing for their profits. The Sierra Club will forward your voice! OR should you prefer to speak via Save Mission Trails, here is our letter and instructions.

Additionally, we are pleased to report that newly-elected State Senator Marty Block and San Diego Councilmember Scott Sherman have written letters to the CPUC in support of the draft ruling, which rejects the SDG&E power purchase agreement for these plants. Click to read Sherman’s letter.

Thank you all, for caring about the future of San Diego and our lovely Mission Trails Regional Park!

Mission Trails When the Days are Short

San Diego does not exhibit the kinds of blatant seasonal changes that you see in Vermont, Oregon or Michigan; we have a more subtle shift in the weather.  Here is what it looks like when winter comes to Mission Trails.

The sun goes down sooner…

Moon rise on a crisp blue sky is common.

Oak leaves turn orange and then drop off at their leisure.

The dam swells from occasional rainstorms.

Note:  Our iconic Mission Dam will turn 200 in the year 2016, which is the same time Cogentrix would construct their Quail Brush power plant in a spot that could be seen from just above the dam.

This is where many of us come to escape the distractions of civilization and the work-a-day life.  We all need Nature to balance us.

Have you ever sat on a rock and looked closely at the colors and patterns?

The sky flaunts drama.

Sunset signals our time to say goodbye until the next time.

Photographs copyright by Patty Mooney

Zombies Arise Near Proposed Quail Brush Power Plant Site

Is this what we want to have happen if we allow Cogentrix to steamroll us and get their way with an already-archaic fossil-fuel power plant which is slated to spew over 200,000 TONS of toxins into our air?  The Quail Brush Power Plant would be located just behind these zombies.

 

 

All kidding aside, we must continue to be vigilant on this important issue, or we will wake up to a humming, whirring, belching, farting power plant right on top of our beloved Mission Trails Regional Park, and we will belatedly wonder if there is something more that we could have done to prevent it.

 

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?

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

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>

 

It’s All About Our Children

We have an opportunity, right now, before the bulldozers start lining up, before construction creates havoc in our community for 18 months, before we commit to constructing a power plant which will forever alter the landscape where children love to play.

We have an opportunity to say “No” and protect our sacred space where the child in ALL of us comes to BE in Nature.  It’s not too late for Cogentrix to realize that they arbitrarily stuck a thumbtack into a map without really studying the affected area, and the importance of Mission Trails Regional Park as a legacy to our children.

Rezoning open-space land to Industrial is not a very bright idea.

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