Dave
Elite Nomad
Posts: 6005
Registered: 11-5-2002
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U.S. illegally granted energy transmission permits!
Never thought this would happen:
U.S. illegally granted permits, judge finds
By Diane Lindquist
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 6, 2003
A federal judge in San Diego ruled yesterday that the U.S. Department of Energy acted illegally in determining that two Mexicali power plants would
not significantly affect the cross-border region's air and water quality.
The plants were expected to begin exporting electricity to California this summer, but the ruling calls into question the U.S. permits they've been
given to build their cross-border transmission lines.
Judge Irma E. Gonzalez agreed with a group of area residents, health organizations and environmentalists who contended the Bush administration's
quick, abbreviated assessment didn't adequately evaluate the plants' environmental consequences.
The ruling dealt a major blow not only to the Bush administration's attempts to expedite power plant permits but also to energy companies that are
planning to build as many as 20 power plants in Mexico to sell electricity in the United States.
It also put the start-up of the two Mexicali facilities in limbo, although construction of the transmission lines for both plants is complete.
The plaintiffs, who included the Border Power Plant Working Group, Earthjustice, and Wild Earth Advocates, were elated by Gonzalez's ruling. They had
focused their efforts on blocking the U.S. permits for the transmission lines after they realized they couldn't influence the Mexican permit process
for the plants.
"It puts the Department of Energy on notice that they can't just ram these permits through," said Imperial County Air Pollution Control District
official Stephen Birdsall. "It's a tremendous victory for the entire border region."
Ross Porter, a spokesman for the American Lung Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties, also praised Gonzalez's ruling. "When you're setting
new precedents, it's not appropriate to shortchange the public's health," he said.
Neither the attorney for the Department of Energy nor agency officials responded to requests yesterday to comment on the ruling.
InterGen plans to export 560 megawatts of electricity from its 1,060 megawatt La Rosita plant, and Sempra Energy International plans to sell all its
Termoelectrica de Mexicali plant's 600 megawatts of electricity north of the border.
Sempra Energy executives hadn't had time to examine the case or determine their options, so they wouldn't comment on the ruling, said spokesman Art
Larson. But he praised the project.
"This line would be helpful in providing electricity for lighting and air conditioning as demands peak this summer," he said.
InterGen spokeswoman Sarah Webster said, "While the ruling is addressed to the DOE, we are clearly interested in the case. We haven't had enough time
to review the ruling though and are currently in the process of doing so."
The power transmission line case is the second recent setback to U.S.-Mexico commerce, said Boris Kozolchyk, director of the National Law Center for
Inter-American Free Trade in Arizona. In January, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco unanimously ruled that the U.S. government
must complete an environmental impact review before Mexican trucks are allowed beyond an existing 20-mile commercial border zone.
"I see this as a disturbing trend in terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement," Kozolchyk said. "There are companies looking at this with a
great deal of interest, and now that interest is frozen."
Judge Gonzalez left open the matter of whether the Department of Energy must now undertake a more complete environmental study or whether requirements
for air pollution offsets and dry-cooling systems will be attached to the permits. Those issues will be addressed in a subsequent remedy phase, with
documents to be submitted to the court by early June.
Julia Olson, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said she will request those measures and ask for an injunction blocking the operation of the transmission
lines until an environmental impact statement has been completed.
Gonzalez ruled that the Department of Energy's "finding of no significant impact," or FONSI, was illegal on two grounds. One was the department
conclusion that supported developers' plans to cool the plants with treated waste water that would then be discharged into the New River and Salton
Sea, both ecologically critical bodies of water.
The plaintiffs argued that the discharge would increase the salinity of the sea, that the lake already is under threat from increasing salinity and
that the discharge would negate current efforts to reduce the salinity.
"The court agrees with plaintiff that the agencies' determination that the actions will not significantly impact the Salton Sea are arbitrary and
capricious," Gonzalez wrote.
The judge also said the government ignored the significant public controversy surrounding the project. Twelve comments were submitted before the
deadline, but 400 more were received shortly afterward.
In the face of such a show of controversy, she wrote, the department was in error in not ordering a more complete environmental impact statement
rather than the more superficial environmental assessment it conducted.
With regard to air quality, Gonzalez said the Energy Department had properly addressed the matter of nitrogen oxide and particulates but that it had
not adequately considered emissions of carbon dioxide and ammonia.
Furthermore, the judge ruled, the agency did not consider, as it should have, the cumulative effect of the plants' emissions on the Imperial
County-Mexicali air basin. Neither community currently meets the air quality standards set by the federal governments of the United States and Mexico.
Marcello Mollo of Earthjustice predicted the case will have widespread implications.
"It shows the Bush Administration cannot allow U.S. power companies to avoid U.S. environmental laws by moving their power plants a few miles south of
the border," he said.
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Diane Lindquist: (619) 293-1812; diane.lindquist@uniontrib.com
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Stephanie Jackter
Senior Nomad
Posts: 566
Registered: 11-3-2002
Location: Arizona
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Looks as though this will be in the courts for a while, doesn't it. - Stephanie
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