Controversial PG&E plans for a new South County substation came to a sudden halt this week when a powerful regulatory agency said it will take another look at energy needs statewide.
At the same time, a foe of a substation on eco-sensitive rural land upped the ante by asking Santa Clara County to seek some local control over the siting of such facilities, in effect wresting at least some decision-making authority from the California Public Utilities Commission.
“Based on the California Independent System Operator’s (CAISO) decision to reassess previously approved projects, including South County Power Connect, we will be postponing updates on our ongoing studies, originally planned for early this year, until the CAISO has finished its evaluation,” PG&E spokesperson Nicole Liebelt said Monday.
“We are committed to providing safe and reliable energy to our customers in southern Santa Clara County and will continue to work with the CAISO to determine the best solution for ensuring long-term reliability in the area,” she said, adding, “We understand the community is very interested in this project, and we will continue to keep the community informed as we receive new information.”
Reaction from substation foes was swift.
“I take this [delay] as a major positive,” John Tepoorten emailed to fellow opponents Tuesday morning.
“I could be wrong, but in light of growth control/urban boundary measures in both Morgan Hill and Gilroy, PG&E lost one of the main reasons cited for even justifying this [substation] project,” he said.
Tepoorten was an early leader of the opposition to PG&E’s plans. His property on Redwood Retreat Road abuts one site under review for its 10-acre substation.
“I’m hopeful this project will get scrapped altogether. PG&E first tried to attribute the increased need to both agriculture and the growing wine industry, but of course that was strongly debunked as both farmers and winemakers basically said, ‘Hey, don’t put this on us!’” Tepoorten said.
“South County residents, both city residents and rural unincorporated folks, want our foothills and scenic areas left to remain just that, scenic,” he added.
Santa Clara County has officially joined the ranks of opponents of a substation on any of five rural parcels on PG&E’s list of eight potential sites.
The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday agreed unanimously to inform PG&E that it opposes those sites in the Gilroy and Morgan Hill countryside and that the only acceptable sites are three in or near Morgan Hill city limits.
PG&E had said it would pick one preferred and two alternate sites this month, announce them publicly by the end of March and submit them to the CPUC later this year for a decision.
Under current state law, the CPUC has sole authority over where substations and other facilities are built by California utility companies. It can accept or reject submitted sites or pick one not on a utility’s list. A CPUC decision on South County had been expected sometime next year.
That was until Monday, when PG&E announced a temporary halt to updates on its project planning while the CAISO reassess South County’s energy needs and those of the entire state.
It’s unclear how long the delay will last or if the reassessment will impact the South County substation plans.
A request to the CAISO for information was not answered by press time.
But another and potentially system-changing wrinkle also appeared this week in the on-going substation saga—in the form of a letter to county supervisors from Dhruv Khanna, owner of Kirigin Cellars on Watsonville and Day roads in rural Gilroy.
In it, Khanna urges supervisors to work to secure authority over such matters for local officials, which would effectively end the CPUC’s monopoly control over decisions that impact county residents.
He accuses PG&E of “Nothing less than a misuse of the CPUC’s processes to engage in a vulgar corporate land-grab” and, “Acting like a corporate bully that it is, and it should be restrained going forward.”
He goes on to say that a switch to local control is what happened when cellphone towers began to proliferate under the CPUC’s authority and local jurisdictions had no say in where towers could be built.
“I respectfully ask you to seek state level statutory amendments to provide local governments with the necessary power of review over such plans in the future,” Khanna wrote.
He was highly critical in an interview with the Dispatch of PG&E’s behaviour, calling its alleged dodging of his written questions “the height of corporate arrogance.”
And he said it would be a good idea to also ask state legislators who represent Santa Clara County to join in the effort to pass laws that give local authorities some say in the siting of PG&E facilities.
Khanna says that for months the utility ignored his request for information about why it could not build the new substation on “its own vast vacant land at its existing substation in Morgan Hill on Main Ave.”
The utility has said publically that that site has always been under study for the project, and that it has not been ruled out.
Khanna’s letter goes on to accuse PG&E of “Throw[ing] our neighborhoods into considerable turmoil,” of using its “overabundance of money to stir us up,” and, in the absence of local control over the site decision, of waving the “CPUC flag as an instrument of intimidation.”
