Greenaction - Bayview Hunters Point Community Unity Position

Action Alert

Read the Unity Position!

Read The New Civil Rights Movement - Environmental Justice and Clean Energy, and the fight against the PG&E power plant in Bayview Hunters Point. Article by Marie Harrison in the Bayview Newspaper

May 2003 Help Bayview Hunters Point residents shut PG&E Hunters Point power plant. Call and email the Governor and Cal ISO today!

For more information, contact:

Greenaction

(415) 248-5010

Open Letter to the City of San Francisco, Governor of the State of California and State and Federal Agencies: End Environmental Injustice and Racism!

Bayview Hunters Point and Potrero have suffered the effects of pollution from PG&E's Hunters Point Power Plant and Mirant's Power Plant for too many years. We have been repeatedly promised that the PG&E plant would be shut down, and yet the company is now applying for permits and funds to allow them to continue operating for years to come.

Now, the City wants to site four new fossil fuel power plants in or near our neighborhood with no guarantees that old power plants will be shut down--this would add pollution instead of reducing it.

Our health and the health of our children has worsened as government agencies continue discussions that fail to remove this threat to the health and well-being of our residents. At times we feel that we are being used as pawns in this game of guaranteeing electric reliability for the Greater Bay Area. Our civil rights are being violated and our health impacted.

We will not sit idly by while our children are forced to use inhalers to breathe, our seniors suffer from cancer and heart disease, and our families are torn apart by the burden of serious illnesses.

If the City, State and Federal agencies are serious about environmental justice:

1. PG&E's Hunters Point Power Plant must be closed completely and immediately;

2. The proposed Mirant Potrero Unit 7 power plant must be rejected;

3. Mirant's Potrero Unit 3 power plant should be permanently shut down;

4. The City and County of San Francisco should aggressively work to install energy efficiency measures and renewable energy to minimize in-city fossil fuel generation;

5. The City, PG&E, and the California Public Utilities Commission should aggressively complete transmission upgrades necessary to ensure reliability while reducing reliance on in-city fossil fuel generation;

6. The City should urge the ISO to rescind the discriminatory G-2 reliability criteria, especially in light of PG&E's document stating it is not necessary;

7. The City must demonstrate the need for additional fossil fuel generation before the siting of any combustion turbines (ie. "peakers" or CT's);

8. No CT's should be sited unless:

a. Points 1 through 3 above are agreed to in an enforceable document;
b. In-city power generation is limited to just the City's demonstrated needs for electric reliability;
c. Any additional generation is ended entirely once sufficient transmission upgrades are in place to ensure reliability;
d. The City fully mitigates the impact of siting combustion turbines. (Mitigation could include eliminating existing pollution sources and making certain that CT's are not a blight on local communities);
e. Locations other than Southeast San Francisco (District 10) should be seriously explored.

9. The City and County of San Francisco, must seek immediate withdrawal of the Reliability Must Run Contracts for PG&E's Hunters Point Power Plant and Potrero Unit 3 from the Independent System Operator. (Funds recovered should be used for additional renewable energy and efficiency programs.)

Signed by All Hollows Tenants Association, Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates, Communities for a Better Environment, Community First Coalition, From the Ground Up,
Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice, Huntersview Tenants Association, Positive Directions Equals Change, San Francisco Bayview Newspaper