A quick review of the AES POWER PLANT MEETING and my view:
My comments at the AES Meeting about not being personally invited to the Peaker Power Plant Hearings need to be understood. I am certain that AES had some hard feelings towards me because I was the ONLY Councilmember that opposed “swapping” land with them two years ago. When AES approached the City a year or two ago to swap lots I was strongly opposed to it. Their posturing that night was obvious to many that they were going to play hard ball to get their way with us. My position was a simple observation that you don’t feed a stray cat. That proved to be so true, hasn’t it?
AES convinced the other Council members, especially Ferre that:
1) The CEC wanted to hear from us and CEC would “come after us for comment” and that we would all be personally invited to meetings. At that time when I was on the Council and opposed to the plant, I was not personally invited and was not even notified of the first meetings. I found out about the first two meetings to be held IN RIVERSIDE COUNTY AT 2:00 PM (during most workdays) not from AES nor CEC but from a phone call from a friend in Highgrove because the notice was in the Highgrove Happenings Newspaper. Immediately I contacted Tom Schwab and expressed my concerns about meetings not being in this city and not even in this county. My statement about AES’s misstatements from the very first is my effort to bring to everyone’s attention that the things AES promised our City Council that first night HAS NOT, WILL NOT, AND WILL NEVER come to fruition. People who misstate little things (you will be personally invited, you do have say in the process), misstate about big things. The only reason that the meetings have been moved to Grand Terrace is because of my aggressive complaints to CEC.
2) AES claims that the old power plant may be started up again. This is bull. The plant has not been fully operational since I have been on the Council. There may have been some activity that AES is calling OPERATIONAL, but that plant has not been fully operational for years. The Grand Terrace City Council was told by Tom Schwab years ago that it was “de-commissioned” and will never be used again. AES needs the status as “operational” for a foot in the door to continue its application and to use as a threat to Grand Terrace. It hasn’t been fully operational for 10 to 15 years; it is just an AES way of trickery toward the City and CEC for their personal gain. I have included below CEC documents of that “Stand-by” status and was not “operational.”
On April 1, 1998, SCE sold its Highgrove Generating Station to Thermo Ecotek, which renamed it, Riverside Canal. At the owner's request, the plant was placed in a standby status and SCE personnel vacated the site in 1998. The plant did not operate during the summer of 1998. However, SCE staffed and operated the plant, at the owner's request and on behalf of the owner, for several months during the summer of 1999 under an Operating and Maintenance (O&M) Agreement with Thermo Ecotek. Subsequently, the facility was again returned to standby status and SCE personnel again vacated the site.
Because the Riverside Canal plant is not currently operating and Thermo Ecotek does not intend to operate it this summer, SCE believes its proposal would provide additional power to the California electricity market and would not displace any generation currently bid into the CALPX market. Therefore, SCE asserts the lease would be consistent with the Commission's Preferred Policy Decision, Decision No. 95-12-063, as modified by Decision No. 96-01-009, and would not violate the buy/sell requirement of the Preferred Policy Decision. SCE recommends that any additional regulatory review caused by this lease should be minimal.
In its comments, Dynegy states that SCE's request does not go far enough to provide SCE incentives to be a full market participant like Dynegy or any other merchant generator. Dynegy recommends that SCE should not be required to track the costs and revenues associated with operating the plant in a memorandum account. SCE should be free to decide how the proceeds should be distributed, e.g. transition cost recovery or dividends to shareholders.Similarly, SCE should bear the risks associated with potential losses. Dynegy claims its proposal has the dual benefits of reducing regulatory oversight and providing SCE market signals as the basis for its decision-making process.
Dynegy notes AL 1468-E is silent on the issue of bidding power into the PX Block- forward market. It requests the Commission clarify that SCE is permitted to sell power in the PX Block- forward market.
Dynegy acknowledges that SCE's proposal poses the difficult policy decision of whether the shift of all risks to SCE's ratepayers is offset by the benefit of the incremental availability of power. Dynegy believes that its recommendations would increase the liquidity of the market, benefit all participants, and are better than regulatory-based rules because they rely on market-based choices.
In response to Dynegy , SCE states that under the Preferred Policy Decision, it is obligated to sell all of its generation output to the CALPX and to track the costs and revenues associated with that production. Net revenues are then credited towards SCE's transition costs. If SCE is to operate the Riverside Canal generating facilities, a memorandum account is needed to track its costs and revenues.
With respect to recovery of losses, SCE responds that the approval of the memorandum account does not mean a guaranteed recovery of losses. SCE states it may seek to recover the losses and entries in the account would be reviewed for reasonableness in the Annual Transition Cost Proceeding (ATCP). There is no guarantee that the excess costs would be found reasonable in the ATCP. SCE, however, adds that it should not be at risk for excess costs because its proposal is a voluntary temporary action to provide capacity during the summer which would reduce the likelihood of Stage II and II Emergencies to the benefit of all California.
SCE does not object to Dynegy's request for clarification that SCE be allowed to sell the output of the Riverside Canal facility to CALPX Block-forward markets. SCE indicated that it is unlikely to sell Riverside Canal's power to the Block -forward market because it does not intend to operate the facility for a protracted period of time.
The reality of the Peaker Plant is that it is a group of smoke stacks. Why are they called Smoke stacks and why are they up in the air 80 feet? Who in their right mind would allow the building of three smoke stacks up wind from their home and across from the High School?
Oh yes, according AES, they will not be 80 feet because they will be down in the bottom of the existing tank farm which is 8 feet lower. AES tells us that we should be happy with this. But why does the government require 80-foot stacks if they are going to lower them below government levels?
It stinks. It the whole thing stinks and IF just three council members who don’t like the idea and were strong enough to speak out in public it would be a different atmosphere around town. But the reality of it is that Ferre has a strong political following in the Lions, Women’s Club and School District employees that the other Council Members are afraid of Ferre’s ability to control the next election.
What worries many people is that there will be liquid ammonia coming and going, there will be cleaning acids for the towers coming and going and trucks daily coming and going as they haul polluted sludge off to San Bernardino. This is all across the street and upwind from the high school and residence. But AES is “bragging” that they have reduced the truck trips by using less well water and more “potable” drinking water.
AES does have some good news. 1)By using well water, it will clean up a polluted well. The benefits to the City is not clear because no one, including the Riverside Highland Water Company, will ever use that well. 2)The pollution will not fall right next to the plant. The main pollution will fall next to the foothills. So people living on the west end of Pico are safe from the natural gas pollution, but if you live east of Mount Vernon (Observation, Westwood, Raven, Oriole, Paradise), or go to Terrace View, GT Elementary, or Terrace Hills you will get the brunt of the pollution. This is only the expected pollution from the natural gas. It is not the unexpected pollution from a chemical spill (i.e., ammonia, cleaning acids, polluted sludge haul off). All of this will be supposed done off of Main Street and never the shorter route through GT along Michigan, or so they say. 3)The last bit of good news…is that AES believes three 80-foot high smoke stacks will add to the beauty of GT. (AES pictures of these beauties are ALWAYS distorted more than the pictures on National Enquirer.)
Having said all of that my interest in the Peaker Power Plant is very simple.
If approved this power plant will give the remaining Colton School Board Members, who may be on the fence about a GT HS, the excuse to build HS #3 in Bloomington. The GT HS will forever be gone. Currently, we have only one School Board Member working for the best interest of the families and students of GT and that is Kent Taylor. Kent, by the way, is up for re-election next year (2008) and we need to keep him on the School Board. Our other representative in this Trusteeship Area of the Terrace is David Zamora. David lives in and works for the City of Colton He has never supported GT.
GT is an amazing place to live and we need to defend our town and not give in to people who want to lower the quality for their personal gain. Herman Hilkey
