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| Donald Felsinger |
By MARK LARSON
Sempra Energy CEO Donald Felsinger says he is confident that necessary regulatory approvals are lined up and construction will begin next summer on the $1.9 billion Sunrise Powerlink transmission project.
But environmental watchdogs are appealing its validity in state courts in an effort to force the project proposed by Sempra subsidiary San Diego Gas & Electric to build a more environmentally friendly, less costly project.
SDG&E is one of six Sempra subsidiaries. The Sunrise Powerlink project is a 150-mile high-voltage transmission line routed from its Imperial Valley substation near El Centro through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and much of San Diego County to its Rancho Penasquitos substation near Interstate 805 in San Diego.
Legal Objection
The utility contends on its Web site the line is needed to bolster what is considered to be “one of the weakest and most vulnerable transmission corridors in the country.” Further, it says the 1,000-megawatt line is needed to bring in wind, geothermal and solar energy from Imperial County and Mexico, and from eastern San Diego County.
San Diego-based Utility Consumers’ Action Network, however, contends the project would needlessly damage the environment and could be built for 10 percent of the proposed cost. Both points have been rejected by SDG&E.
On Aug. 12, UCAN and others were poised to file writs with both the California Supreme Court and the 4th District Court of Appeals to revoke the proposed project’s foundation, a certificate of public convenience and necessity.
In a recent conference call discussing Sempra’s first half 2009 financials with analysts, Felsinger, who was unavailable for an interview with the Business Journal, gave his assessment of the project:
“We expect to start construction next summer on the $1.9 billion project in order to have it in place in the second half of 2012. We’ve already received approvals from the CPUC (California Public Utilities Commission) and Bureau of Land Management and expect the final major approval from the U.S. Forest Service later this year.”
But Donna Tisdale, a Boulevard-based environmental activist calling herself one of the projects “appellants/plaintiffs,” responded online to Sempra’s analyst conference.
She called it “sadly ironic” that there was no mention of the appeals and “pending litigation for the arbitrary and capricious approvals” of the project by the CPUC and the BLM.
She said she doesn’t expect the approvals to pass court scrutiny. “Nor do I believe that the U.S. Forest Service will be foolish enough to approve the project permit without going through the separate EIS and public review process,” which she added is required by law.
