Controversial power line could be approved soon

CHINO HILLS - State public utility commissioners may approve a Southern California Edison plan to run five miles of a high-voltage wind-energy power line through city neighborhoods as soon as Thursday.

The news comes after a contentious meeting between city and Edison officials that compared the competing power line route proposals of both agencies.

Councilman Ed Graham, who was disappointed Public Utility Commission members had not asked for a formal review of the city's planned route, expressed pessimism after watching the meeting.

"I would be happy if the commission stepped up and did the right thing, but I'm not sure they will," Graham said.

The city has proposed an alternative route through Chino Hills State Park because of residential concerns dealing with safety, aesthetics and real estate value decline, but the plan was rejected by state utility commission consultants earlier this year in an environmental report that concluded the Edison plan would have less environmental impact than the city's plan.

Among the matters discussed at the PUC hearing, city officials said, was Edison's opposition to the placement of a switching station on the Aerojet property, a former weapons testing site, near Chino Hills State Park, that was proposed as part of the city's alternative route. Work has been ongoing to clear the area of buried and unexploded munitions and uranium.

"What really occurred was a failure by the Public Utility Commission staff," said City Attorney Mark Hensley. "With the preparation of the documents that went to the PUC, there was really no analysis of the Aerojet site. It was really towards the end of the process that Edison said, `we can't build it there, it's contaminated,' which was not correct in the perspective of where the proposed facility would be. It's nowhere near any of the areas on site that have been subject to remediation."

Edison also discounted the city's plan as more costly and time consuming then the five-mile power line route the power company has proposed through the city. The arguments were again raised at a closing hearing on the matter held by the California Public Utility Commission in San Francisco last Friday.

Councilman Bill Kruger criticized those claims.

"They said a change would take a long time and cost a lot of money and we're the technical experts said how much it increases the budget, when in fact the budget from their side was in great question ... they hadn't defined it yet," he said.

The Public Utility Commission's administrative law judge also favored the Edison route through Chino Hills earlier this month.

Edison spokesman Paul Klein called the proposed decision from the PUC "a positive step toward building needed electric transmission facilities that will help meet important state and national renewable energy goals."

The entire 250-mile Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project proposed by Edison will bring green energy from wind farms in Central California to the Los Angeles Basin - part of a state goal to increase the use of sustainable energy.

A five-mile swath of the proposed path through Chino Hills would double the size of existing inactive Edison power lines to about 200 feet. About 1,000 residents would live within 500 feet of the lines, officials said.

Residents' concerns include the possibility of harm from large electrical towers falling on or near homes during an earthquake or high winds; the aesthetic degradation of the city from the large towers; a reduction in home values; noise, and possible adverse health impacts from electromagnetic fields.