Power Project Gains Support
A labor group wants an environmental study, but a state energy panel's staff sees no need.
By Doug Haberman
Published October 7, 2004
Reprinted with permission from The Press-Enterprise

The staff of the California Energy Commission is recommending a special exemption for a proposed 96-megawatt power plant that the city wants to build near its sewage-treatment plant.

"Staff concludes that the project, as mitigated by all measures proposed or agreed to by the applicant, clearly does not have the potential to result in any significant impacts," the commission staff wrote in a document filed Monday.

The exemption would represent the commission's approval for the plant. The city has applied for permission to build the plant to avoid summer blackouts.

The city would still need permits from other entities, including the South Coast Air Quality Management District, before it can build the plant.

A labor coalition, California Unions for Reliable Energy, has argued that the expected environmental effects of the natural gas-fired plant, primarily air pollution, would be serious enough that the commission should require a full environmental impact report. That would make the approval process much longer.

The city would like to have at lest one of the plant's two turbines operating by July, city officials said.

Steve Badgett, Riverside assistant utilities director for energy delivery, said the city is hoping for commission approval by early December.

The commission staff's recommendation comes after a two-day hearing in Riverside last month during which the labor coalition sought to make the case for a longer approval process. The labor group, which is also known by the acronym CURE, had several expert witnesses testify about what they consider to be likely environmental impacts of building and operating the plant.

"Cure has failed to substantiate any of their assertions with credible, accurate, or reliable facts," Wrote Lisa M. DeCarlo, the commission's staff counsel.

But the labor coalition filed its own document with the commission Monday. It contends it has provided enough evidence to support the argument that the power-plant project will cause significant air pollution. The commission must therefore deny the special exemption and require a full environmental impact report, the coalition maintains.

The more thorough review would lead to better mitigation measures for a project that "will be dangerous to the health of people in Riverside," said Marc Joseph, an attorney for the labor coalition.

The committee of two commission members that oversaw the hearing in Riverside will write a proposed decision for the full five-member commission to vote on, commission spokesman Chris Davis said.

No deadline for filing the proposed decision has been set nor has a date of the commission vote, he said.

Once the proposed decision is made public, interested parties will have 30 days to file comments. They will also have a chance to make an oral presentation to the commission before the commission votes, Davis said.