Morgan Hill
– Next month, Coyote Valley’s Metcalf Energy Center turns 2
years old. But state and local elected officials aren’t reaching
for noisemakers – they’re clamoring instead for a downwind
air-monitoring station that still hasn’t been installed to protect
South County residents.
Morgan Hill – Next month, Coyote Valley’s Metcalf Energy Center turns 2 years old. But state and local elected officials aren’t reaching for noisemakers – they’re clamoring instead for a downwind air-monitoring station that still hasn’t been installed to protect South County residents.
The Metcalf Energy Center, a 600-megawatt power plant fueled by natural gas, uses combined-cycle technology that is 40 percent more efficient than older power plants.
While generating much-needed power – one megawatt can power 750 homes – the center also generates carbon monoxide, particulate matter and oxides of nitrogen.
The plant’s emissions and air-quality impacts are required to comply with various state and federal laws, which allow maximum of 124 tons of nitrous oxide to be released per year at the facility. Additionally, the plant is licensed to emit 589 tons of carbon monoxide.
Emission readings over the established standards could be a threat to South County residents in particular, whose air quality is already considered to be the worst in the Bay Area.
Two state legislators have written San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed urging him to expedite the project and Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate said he is now working on a similar letter.
“We are upset about the lack of progress on this after so long a time,” Tate said in an e-mail Friday.
The power plant was approved by San Jose in 2001 at the height of the state’s energy crisis. As a result, San Jose-based Calpine Corporation avoided many land-use regulations. But San Jose officials nonetheless insisted on installing air-monitoring stations north and south of the plant.
While the northern station at Los Paseos Park has been operating since November 2004, the city has not yet installed a southern monitoring site.
Inquiring about the slow progress, State Assembly members John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, and Anna Caballero, D-Salinas, each sent a letter to Reed in the last four months urging the new mayor to expedite the project.
Reed, who heard from Laird in January and Caballero in April, has yet to respond.
San Jose planners, meanwhile, continue to work with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and Calpine to determine a southern monitoring site.
“We are on stand-by,” said Karen Schkolnick, a spokeswoman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which is playing an advisory role in the project. “As soon as we hear from the city, we are ready to assist them.”
Tony Eulo, who heads up environmental programs for Morgan Hill, said emissions from Metcalf are usually “pretty dispersed” by the time they get to Morgan Hill. But Charter School Morgan Hill, he noted, sits close to the power plant, near Sycamore Avenue and Monterey Road, and students and teachers might be among the first to be affected by harmful emissions.
“We do have some of the worst air quality in the Bay Area so any addition isn’t good,” Eulo said. “But, at the same time, we need power.”
Anthony Drummond, who is chief of staff for San Jose City Councilman Forrest Williams, whose district includes Coyote Valley, said San Jose officials are evaluating a site at Bailey Avenue and Monterey Road. If the monitor can be effective despite emissions from passing cars, Drummond said it could then take the San Jose Planning Commission and City Council three to four months to approve the monitoring station.
“We are trying to push it as fast as we can,” he said.
