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Press Coverage December 19, 2003 Alameda Times-Star
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Activists fight waste-burning facility Island power
company considers controversial plant By Kristin Bender, STAFF WRITER ALAMEDA -- Environmentalists chastised Alameda Power & Telecom on Thursday for considering a garbage-burning facility and soliciting firms to build it. A dozen activists gathered at Alameda City Hall to target the city's energy department and its study of a municipal solid-waste gasification plant in Alameda or a nearby city. Some belong to the same group that worked to shut down Integrated Environmental System's medical waste incinerator on Oakland's High Street two years ago. "We plan on stopping this project ... it will never be built," said Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction, a San Francisco health and environmental justice group that fights new incinerators in California. "(Alameda Power & Telecom) says this is not an incinerator because the public would not stand for an incinerator. We believe this is an incinerator in disguise." A gasification plant basically cooks garbage to produce synthetic gas for a combustion turbine. Gasification is desirable because it produces power while reducing what goes into landfills, power officials said. But environmentalists claim a gasification facility would emit toxins, including metals and dioxin, which can cause cancer, birth defects, hormonal changes, diabetes, developmental disabilities and immune system problems. "No amount of dioxin is safe," Angel said. Alameda Power & Telecom officials don't dispute that claim. "No decision has been made regarding the technology that will be used for power generation nor where future generating facilities will be located," said Alameda Power & Telecom spokesman Bill Garvine. Thirteen companies are vying to build the plant and have submitted preliminary qualifications to Alameda Power & Telecom. In addition to studying solid-waste gasification, the utility, as a member of the Northern California Power Agency, is evaluating wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, land-fill gas, biomass fuel and ocean waves to produce power, Garvine said. Since April 2002, the utility has spent at least $500,000 to pay consultants to study the feasibility of a new power plant. Findings are due in the spring, Garvine said. Before a plant could be built, the utility would be required to hold public meetings and go before the Public Utilities Board and likely the Alameda City Council for approval, Garvine said. "We are in the middle of a study and we have an obligation to the citizens and to the industry to complete the study because (gasification) is an emerging technology," he said. Not good enough, said the group of a dozen environmentalists who gathered on the steps of Alameda City Hall to protest such a plant. "It's a waste of time and money," said Martin Bourque, executive director of the Ecology Center in Berkeley. "This is not new. It's an old technology that is remarketed. This was defeated in the 1980s, and frankly I'm frustrated that we are back talking about it (now)." A power plant is under consideration because the city doesn't want to be caught with a shortfall when Alameda Point is developed during the next decade. The utility gets its power from a variety of sources, including geothermal and hydroelectric plants, steam-injected gas turbines and simple-cycle combustion turbines. But the Island's demand for electric power will exceed its supply by 2005 when the federal Western Area Power Administration cuts back its output and in turn reduces the amount of power it delivers Alameda. The city expects an estimated 5-megawatt shortfall with the federal cutback. Five-megawatts is about enough juice to power 5,000 homes daily, said Alameda Power & Telecom general manager Junona Jonas. A new power plant could generate 12 to 150 megawatts of power daily, according to preliminary findings in the study by Advanced Energy Strategies of Pleasant Hill. Alameda is also considering
gasification to help meet the state's mandate that at least 20 percent
of power generated by California utilities come from renewable sources
by 2017. "It is absolutely Although a site for the potential plant has not been nailed down, the utility was considering San Leandro's Davis Street where solid waste is processed. But San Leandro city leaders have come out against such a power plant in their city. Garvine said utility officials won't know until the study is complete next year if a site at Alameda Point and a site across the Oakland Estuary next to the Port of Oakland are viable options. Copyright 2003 MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers |
