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The Riverside Press-Enterprise March 14, 2001
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Desert Power Plan Upsets Many Groups Environmentalists, farmworkers and Blythe community groups on Tuesday protested plans to build a 520-megawatt power plant along the Colorado River. From AP & staff reports BLYTHE, CA -- The protesters join others in California communities who oppose construction of new power plants and transmission lines, despite what state energy officials say is a shortfall in energy supplies. Tuesday's protest was designed to persuade the Blythe City Council to withdraw its support for the proposed Blythe Energy Project, a $250 million project about five miles west of downtown. Opponents also were upset that the California Energy Commission refused to move its Friday hearing on the plant to Blythe so residents wouldn't have to travel more than 600 miles to attend. A final decision on the plant could come by March 21. "It's almost as if our human rights are being trampled over regardless of what we think," said Carmella Garnica, who runs a Blythe child-care center. Blythe residents still will be able to participate via teleconference. The Energy Commission said it has tried to inform all Blythe-area residents about the proposal and held three meetings there last year. Commission staff concluded the plant will not significantly affect air quality, ground water or the area's farming capacity. Some residents and workers are not convinced. Garnica, a Blythe native, is worried about air pollution from the proposed plant, which is just two miles from the child-care center, and the amount of ground water it would use. "We're fighting for our basic rights -- water, air. We're not asking for anything else," she said. Because the plant would emit more smog-forming pollution than permitted, it will buy emmission credits from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which oversees the Los Angeles basin that includes the Inland area, said Sam Atwood, an AQMD spokesman. The Blythe proposal is one of 13 major power plant projects before the commission. The state's energy shortage has prompted Gov. Davis to order the commission to speed up the approval process without skirting environmental rules. Despite the state's attempts to speed plant construction, several proposals in Riverside County are meeting with fierce community opposition. Temecula residents, for instance, are fighting plans to build power lines nearby and through the Cleveland National Forest. In addition, environmentalists oppose proposed Imperial Irrigation District power lines that would transmit energy from Blythe to the Coachella and Imperial Valleys. The power lines may siphon energy from the Blythe Energy Project should it receive approval. "We are trying to move quickly on this proposal due to the current energy situation," said Jim Kenna, a Bureau of Land Management field manager, who added that a thorough environmental analysis would be conducted. Environmentalists say the transmission towers would cut through Chuckwalla Bench south of Interstate 10, land inhabited by the federally protected desert tortoise. The reptile's recovery would be harmed, environmentalists said, because the towers and power lines would act as perches for raptors that prey on the young tortoises. "We really have to watch that in this frenzy for more power, that we're not just obliterating critical habitat," said Daniel Patterson of the Center for Biological Diversity. A public hearing on the power-lines proposal will be held March 28 at 7 p.m. at the Imperial Irrigation District's office in La Quinta. Press-Enterprise staff writer Jennifer Bowles and The Associated Press contributed to this report. |