Line opponents' new reports cite fires

By: DAVE DOWNEY - North County Times Staff Writer

Focus on need for Sunrise power line to shift to environmental impacts, route

NORTH COUNTY -- Opponents of a power line proposed for the North County backcountry filed reports over the weekend charging that this fall's wildfires illustrated dramatically the need to scrap the $1.3 billion line.

The Utility Consumers' Action Network, a San Diego advocacy group, suggested that one of San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s principal arguments for building the line -- that it would give San Diego County a more reliable power supply -- was undermined during the fires.

Late last month, blazes knocked out both of the existing major transmission lines that bring electricity into the county, including some of those along the coast that run through the San Onofre nuclear power plant, and all of the wires that come in from the east via the Southwest Powerlink near Interstate 8. Meanwhile, the 198,000-acre Witch Creek fire tore through the territory that would be crossed by the proposed Sunrise Powerlink wires.

Sunrise is a proposed 500-kilovolt transmission line that would feature wires strung from metal towers as tall as 150 feet along a 150-mile track from El Centro to San Diego that would cross Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and Ramona.

The consumer group was among a dozen entities on Friday to file new reports, called briefs, with the California Public Utilities Commission in the long-running case to determine if the line should be built.

In one filing, David Lloyd, attorney for Cabrillo Power in Carlsbad, cited the wildfires. Lloyd said the firm is neutral on the project and will continue to be -- as long as it doesn't get in the way of efforts to replace aging San Diego County power plants. Cabrillo has proposed replacing its half-century-old, 965-megawatt gas-powered Encina plant.

Lloyd wrote that fires underscored the need to have a broad mix of electricity sources, including local power plants, and not to rely too heavily on power imported on wires that crisscross the fire-prone backcountry.

"It is a simple fact that wildfires are a reality for San Diego," Lloyd wrote. "It is clear from all of the public fire maps that the Sunrise line would have suffered the same fate as the Southwest Powerlink and the San Onofre transmission lines."

Jennifer Briscoe, a spokeswoman for San Diego Gas & Electric, said Monday that it is unclear what would have happened had the Sunrise line been in place during the fires, and more will be known once firefighting agencies complete reports on the blazes later this month.

But Briscoe said the utility stands behind its argument that the region would be better protected from blackouts by having three major transmission lines instead of two.

Besides the vulnerability to being knocked off line, conservationists said the fires illustrated the looming global warming threat.

Steven Siegel and Justin Augustine, staff attorneys for the Tucson, Ariz.-based environmental group Center for Biological Diversity, suggested the fires were a hint of what is to come with a changing climate fueled by the industrial production of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.

"The firestorm that struck Southern California on Oct. 21, 2007, places an exclamation point over the importance of acting now to reduce the impact of global warming," the brief states.

Yet, the attorneys wrote, Sunrise Powerlink would make matters worse by paving the way for new coal-fired plants to be built in the Southwest to provide power for San Diego County. Coal plants tend to be large generators of greenhouse gases.

The utility, on the other hand, contends that the line would do just the opposite and substantially curb greenhouse gas emissions from natural-gas-fired plants by switching much of San Diego County's electricity base to solar, wind and geothermal plants. The utility faces a 2010 state mandate to secure 20 percent of its electricity from nonfossil-fuel sources such as solar. And it says Sunrise is key to meeting that target.

The local consumer group, however, maintains there is plenty of capacity in the existing 500-kilovolt Southwest Powerlink line along Interstate 8 to bring solar and wind electricity to the San Diego area.

"SDG&E's Field of Dreams argument -- if we don't build it, they won't come -- fails in a number of ways," wrote Michael Shames, Utility Consumers' Action Network executive director, in the group's brief.

The latest filings focus on the need for the Sunrise line. The period for filing briefs capsulizing the months of testimony to date opened on Friday and will close Nov. 30.

-- Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 745-6611, Ext. 2623