JUNE 9, 2008 Walking on a Wire Los Angeles needs green power. Does it have to tear up the desert to get it? by Judith Lewis On federal land just a few yards from the boundary of his property, One hundred and fi fty miles east of Puglisi spotted a bright orange the city of Los Angeles, the Mojave stake marking the spot where a and Colorado deserts converge in metal disk had been anchored towering granite rock formations in the ground with concrete. and strange succulent plants - Engraved on the disk were the words, “Los Angeles Department - Joshua trees raising their arms Electric transmission lines near Richvale, to heaven like ancient prophets. of Water and Power.” California. DAVID R. FRAZIER/ From Interstate 10, everything DANITA DELIMONT AGENCY/DRR. “From what I could tell,” says the NET looks brown and barren, but oases 47-year-old Puglisi, “it looked like of spring-fed green hide a little some kind of utility project was ways in, with just enough water and Power, and handed out fl iers either going right through my land detailing plans for their brand-new to sustain several hundred species or on the ridge right above it.” of birds, lizards, bugs, bobcats, renewable electricity transmission project, the Green Path North. desert tortoise and a ragged herd Puglisi was fl abbergasted. “We of peninsular bighorn sheep. had just secured our building In some circles, this was awfully permit,” he says. “We had put good news. The LADWP had Austin Puglisi had planned to in our solar-powered well. Now build his dream home here. Not begun planning the Green Path it looks like we have to put the North three years ago, in part to your typical desert dream home, whole thing on hold.” the one with the high fence to access carbon-free, always-on power from geothermal fi elds in protect it from wind and the His neighbors were fi nding similar the Imperial Valley near the Salton irrigated lawn to mimic the lush clues in other places. Unfamiliar Sea, 180 miles away. The utility Midwest. Puglisi wanted to build trucks were lumbering across appeared to be moving ahead a tiny shack and set the rest of his the Kickapoo Trail through the aggressively on renewable-energy 54-acre parcel aside for wildlife. Big Morongo Canyon Preserve; transmission -- and that meant it He would use only local water helicopters were landing on the might soon deliver on its long- and recycle it into the aquifer. He boundaries of birdwatchers’ stalled promise to bring green would get off the grid and live far desert hideaways. The men who power to its 4 million customers, from its infl uence. So it came as a emerged from the trucks and who currently rely on coal burned shock, one day last winter, when helicopters cheerfully identifi ed out of state for close to half their Puglisi discovered that the grid themselves as surveyors for the electricity. was coming to him. Los Angeles Department of Water “The LADWP wants to be a to the Salton Sea and Arizona’s More to the point, Los Angeles leader in the fi eld of renewable Palo Verde nuclear plant. It could is in a hurry. The city needs to energy,” affirmed the utility’s do that via any of six different meet the renewable energy goals new general manager and CEO, routes, including one down the imposed by its green-minded H. David Nahai, shortly after he Interstate 10 freeway corridor, mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, who moved from the utility’s board of which would expand a right of wants 20 percent of the city’s commissioners to its executive way owned by another California power to come from renewable branch in December. And a utility, Southern California Edison, sources by 2010, and 35 percent significant piece of that effort, and require the condemnation of by 2020. And it also has to catch he said, will be “building the 3,500 properties. up with the rest of California. transmission to bring it home.” None of the state’s other utilities, By the time of Puglisi’s discovery from the investor-owned Southern But for Puglisi, who also volunteers in late 2007, however, the California Edison to the public with several desert conservancies, LADWP had already submitted an Sacramento Municipal Utility the markers signaled a new application to the Bureau of Land District, emit anywhere near the threat to a landscape that local Management for a right of way 13 million metric tons of carbon environmentalists had long worked following the markers through dioxide that LADWP does every to preserve. Small nonprofi ts like the Big Morongo Preserve. A year. And while the public utility The Wildlands Conservancy and few months later, it petitioned was previously exempt from a the Mojave Desert Land Trust the federal Department of Energy state anti-global warming law, it have spent years cobbling together to include that route in the West- may soon be subject to a statewide private and public funds to buy up Wide Energy Corridor (WWEC), cap-and-trade system taxing all hundreds of thousands of acres of a process set forth by Congress greenhouse gas emitters, public the Mojave, preserving them for in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and private. marginal species like the fringe- to fold hundreds of energy- toed lizard and the endangered transportation projects into a So the LADWP, which currently peninsular bighorn sheep. If the single environmental review. The derives only eight percent of its survey markers indicated anything, way it looked to Puglisi, the L.A. energy from renewable sources it was that 85 miles of 160-foot-tall Department of Water and Power -- up from three percent in 2006 steel towers, occupying a footprint -- the same agency that 85 years -- has had to scramble to fi nd green 330 feet wide and buzzing with ago built an aqueduct to suck the power. And the Mojave has long 500 kilovolt wires, would soon be Owens River Valley dry -- was been a natural place to look. cutting across the path those sheep setting up for another desert land use to get to their only source of grab. “Los Angeles,” Puglisi “The wasteland of the desert is summer water. observes, “doesn’t give out very the goldmine of our future energy much information.” needs,” writes the octogenarian Worried calls to the utility energy expert S. David Freeman invariably met with the same in his book, Winning Our Energy response: No route had been Independence. Freeman, who decided upon, and any discussion helped guide energy policy with the community over the under both the Nixon and Carter transmission project would be administrations, ran the L.A. premature. The utility confi rms Department of Water and Power only that the Green Path North from 1997 to 2001. He wears has to extend south from the desert H. David Nahai says the Los Angeles cowboy hats and speaks in a town of Hesperia to a substation Department of Water and Power Tennessean’s exaggerated drawl, near Palm Springs, where it will “agonize(s) all the time” about the and retains an environmental link up with existing transmission effects of new transmission lines through hero’s glow in Southern California, the desert. KEVIN SCANLON where he’s now busily greening in the 1920s and built her own the city’s soot-choked port. house in the rocks. Sall left the area to earn a biology degree at The 55-year-old Nahai, by Humboldt State University, but contrast, ran his own private real later returned, determined to estate law fi rm before coming to defend her home. “There was a the utility. He wears elegantly cut lot of great conservation going suits and delivers his words in a on up on the North Coast with refi ned, British-infl ected English. the Redwoods,” she says. “There But in all the important ways, he In the path of powerlines? An endangered were not as many people working desert tortoise. PHOTO COURTESY is Freeman’s philosophical heir: to save the desert.” DONNA THOMAS, CALIFORNIA Next to the challenge of weaning DESERT COALITION his city off coal, all other concerns Sall and her allies find many pale. parallels between the Los isn’t enough of it; expensive wind Angeles Aqueduct and the Green projects go underused because “The effects on the environment Path North. In 1906, William no one can agree on who will and the repercussions (of Mulholland inveigled Gifford front the money for the power transmission) -- we agonize over Pinchot into declaring the Owens lines. Because there’s a fi nancial it all the time,” Nahai says. “But Valley federal forest so the city incentive for utilities to own I remain convinced that those wouldn’t have to buy off private transmission -- it means they don’t Salton Sea resources are the only landowners; now the LADWP have to pay “wheeling fees” to fuel to replace coal. And it is in the has asked the federal government use another company’s lines -- best interest of the state and all of to classify its preferred route as a sometimes more transmission gets its citizens that we access them.” federal energy corridor. Congress built than anyone really needs. A year ago, Nahai described granted a right of way for the Los Most of the time, however, energy this as acting on behalf of the Angeles aqueduct only after the companies complain that energy “greater good.” The wording was city promised it would use the is like food: There’s plenty to go unfortunate, echoing as it did the water solely for non-industrial around, and no one would starve if same utilitarian principle -- the purposes; the LADWP hopes to only the distribution were better. greatest good for the greatest smooth the way for its transmission It was with that complaint in mind number -- Franklin D. Roosevelt line by dedicating it only to green that Congress in 2005 designated used to justify the Owens Valley power. routes through federal lands in 11 water deal. Desert residents seized “The general sentiment that we’re Western states, plus more potential on it. “Whose ’greater good’ are finding as desert residents and transmission through private land we talking about?” gripes April biologists is that Los Angeles in the Southwest and Northeast. Sall, who manages two preserves thinks the desert is a place to dump If local and state governments in the Mojave for The Wildlands things,” says Sall. “First it’s their attempt to block these corridors, Conservancy. “What about the trash, then their nuclear waste. the Federal Energy Regulatory greater good of future generations Now it’s their energy projects.” Commission can step in after a who won’t have this land to year and, under the provisions of enjoy?” Almost since George the energy bill, push the projects Westinghouse built an 11,000-volt through. Consequently, the protests A serious 28-year-old with a blond power line to transport electricity of the Mojave activists are being ponytail and a rosy tan, Sall is a 20 miles from Niagara Falls to echoed throughout the West. The third-generation citizen of this Buffalo, N.Y., the transmission sweeping environmental impact desert. Her family has lived here of electrical power has stirred up report for the West-Wide Energy since her grandmother came trouble. Cities go dark when there out as a young single woman Corridor designates more than 6,000 miles of corridors -- and environmental agenda. Come out completing them will require against a project that brings wind rezoning some 165 wilderness energy down from Wyoming, areas. however, or moves electricity from large-scale solar installations The Southern Utah Wilderness to coal-dependent cities, and you Alliance is fi ghting a transmission come out against polar bears and corridor that will plow a route along in favor of cataclysmic drought, all Utah’s Moab Rim. In Oregon, An LADWP survey stake in Big Morongo. to prevent a localized disturbance PHOTO COURTESY DONNA THOMAS, conservation groups oppose a in your backyard. No matter how CALIFORNIA DESERT COALITION proposed gas line that would bore pristine that backyard, or how under rivers in the Mount Hood many rare species it contains, been part of the Renewable Energy National Forest. According to the saving it can’t possibly trump Transmission Initiative (RETI), a map of proposed transmission saving the coasts from rising statewide consortium of energy routes issued by the Department seas. companies, land-management of Energy, the state of Nevada agencies and environmental groups could be divided up like a quilt to All this has inspired some devoted to solving the myriad transport energy straight through California leaders to suggest problems associated with bringing the Desert National Wildlife that only conservationists now carbon-free power to market. He’s Complex. “No opening of any stand in the way of renewable also participating in the Western wilderness areas in this state to energy. In an April 18 speech Governors’ Association’s Western any energy corridors ever,” Bill at Yale University’s Climate Renewable Energy Zones project, Huggins of Friends of the Nevada Change Conference, California which had its kickoff meeting May Wilderness told the Department of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger 28 in Salt Lake City. The WGA Energy at a public meeting in Las announced that “the Germans, foresees adding 30,000 megawatts Vegas. “Absolutely not.” the French, the Canadians, the of “new clean and diverse energy” Japanese, they all want to come out to the Western states’ grid by “It’s hard to see which Western to California and put solar power 2015. constituency could possibly plants in the Mojave desert and in support this,” said Amy Atwood, other places. The only thing is that “Avoiding protected areas of a staff attorney with the Center for the problem is getting that new the desert is going to be a neat Biological Diversity, at meeting energy to the power grid because trick,” Zichella says, “but that in Portland, Ore. “But the answer, of environmental hurdles.” doesn’t mean it can’t be done. of course, is that the constituency The thing people have to keep that supports this doesn’t live in “I think Gov. Schwarzenegger in the back of their minds is that the West. It lives on Wall Street so wants to see progress that FERC has the authority to build and in D.C., and it is attempting, he’s becoming impatient,” says lines. That makes it incumbent essentially ... to sell off as much Carl Zichella, the Sierra Club’s upon us to make sure those lines of our public lands as possible for regional staff director for Southern are dedicated to renewable energy, energy development before public California. “I share the governor’s and that we’re not facilitating the outcry rises to the degree that such impatience, but we’re working development of coal.” policy choices will no longer be as fast as we can.” Moving tolerated.” large utilities off coal and onto Zichella is reserving judgment on renewables, he says, “is a little the Green Path North until the L.A. Some of these battles have clearer like turning the Exxon Valdez Department of Water and Power lines than others. An energy around.” officially announces a route, corridor devoted to bringing more hoping the utility will choose to oil out of Utah likely serves no For the past year, Zichella has work with Southern California Edison to share a right of way wants on the next state ballot.) about transmission in general. along the freeway corridor. He is The environmentalists, he told the “I think what we need to do as a less diplomatic, however, about Yale audience, are engaging in a state is take a step back and look another proposed transmission “kind of a schizophrenic behavior. at what’s happened in the last 30 line to the south, San Diego Gas & They say that we want renewable years. Have we kept pace with the Electric’s Sunrise Powerlink. “The energy but we don’t want you to development of new transmission? Sunrise Powerlink is an example put it anywhere.” The answer is clearly no. And of a project that has been jammed that’s irresponsible.” through without public support David Hogan of the Center for or environmental safeguards,” Biological Diversity says that it’s Early on, when LADWP’s survey Zichella says. “It would be a not that simple. He doubts whether markers started to appear in nature mistake to allow it to be built.” the Sunrise Powerlink will carry preserves and on private property, as much renewable energy as it a group of desert activists calling Like the Green Path North, the does natural gas-fi red power from themselves the California Desert $1.5 billion, 150-mile Sunrise a plant Sempra recently acquired Coalition set out to document Powerlink has been pitched as a in northern Mexico. “Sempra has them using GPS coordinates. way of transporting geothermal invested billions in a liquefied Two of those activists, Ruth from the Salton Sea and solar natural gas facility in Baja,” he Rieman and Donna Thomas, power from large-scale projects says, “and they need a way to get led residents and journalists on the desert. Its preferred route that to market. That’s what the regular visits to the sites, to show also cuts through pristine bighorn Sunrise Powerlink is for.” off not only the markers but the sheep habitat, in California’s area’s dramatic mesquite-covered much-beloved Anza Borrego State Other Powerlink opponents doubt washes, thousand-foot bluffs Park. A report issued in January the viability of the Salton Sea and, this spring, its wildfl owers. by the California Public Utilities fi elds, claiming that the utilities But when the two women hiked Commission fl atly concludes that have an inflated sense of how out to the Big Morongo preserve the investor-owned SDG&E’s much power lies waiting there in April, they found that all the preferred route for the Sunrise or how much can be harnessed survey markers had disappeared. Powerlink would devastate the without draining half the sea. But Only mounds of disturbed soil wilderness. The report goes on to a seismic survey commissioned by remained. recommend several alternatives, CalEnergy, which already operates including upgrading existing a 340 megawatt operation at the transmission lines that the site, shows that the Salton Sea California Independent System geothermal fields (SSGF) may Operator has declared critically be hotter and deeper than anyone congested. guessed, with enough steamy brine to spin out 2,330 megawatts Schwarzenegger, however, likes for more than 30 years and power the Sunrise Powerlink just fi ne more than 2 million homes. -- and not, his offi ce says, just because the San Diego utility’s “We think it’s the largest parent corporation, Sempra geothermal fi eld in the planet,” Energy, donated $25,000 to his says CalEnergy’s vice president, April Sall is interviewed while inaugural committee. (Shortly Vince Signorotti. And while California Desert Coalition members after he announced his support CalEnergy has not taken an offi cial protest the Green Path North Route in January. PHOTO COURTESY DONNA for the Powerlink, Sempra position on either the Green Path North or the Sunrise Powerlink, THOMAS, CALIFORNIA DESERT poured another $50,000 into a COALITION redistricting effort the governor Signorotti does have an opinion “They didn’t brush out their under his watch as commission where it’s used.” She points to tracks,” Rieman muttered chair that the LADWP finally Southern California Edison’s disapprovingly. made good on its agreement to rooftop solar effort, launched return water to the Owens Valley April 2, to put a total of two square “I ordered all of those markers (“There it is,” he announced miles of photovoltaic panels taken out,” Nahai says. “I wrote at the unveiling of the reverse- atop warehouses in the inland personal letters to all of the pumping project, “give it back,” counties of San Bernardino and property owners that were affected a magnanimous flip-flop of Riverside. In fi ve years, the $875 to explain that the markers were Mulholland’s 1913 declaration, million project will generate 225 being removed, and that they were “There it is, take it.”) megawatts of electricity at peak not intended to indicate a decided hours, enough to serve 162,000 pathway. We’re going to have Nahai guarantees that the Green homes. a very open and visible process Path North will carry only carbon- before deciding on a route.” free sources of electricity along its Yet even that kind of massive solar route. In late April, the LADWP project only nicks away at the The move was intended, he adds, inked an agreement with the Salton needs of coal-fi red Los Angeles, “to alleviate anxiety.” Instead, Sea-adjacent Imperial Irrigation which in the summer of 2006 it seemed only to compound District to begin work on its fi rst hit a peak load exceeding 6,000 suspicions. 200-megawatt plant. It seems megawatts. LADWP will spend “There’s no question there’s an unlikely that the utility will cave $300 million over the next 10 years urgency about the greenhouse to the Mojave conservationists’ to install 280 megawatts of locally gas situation and the need for demands. generated power. It broke ground California to make a statement. in March on the Pine Tree Wind It comes down to this, Nahai says: Farm in the Mojave’s Jawbone It’s a question of how they do “What is it that we’re going to it, and the process they take to Canyon, a project that the Audubon do as a state and a society? If we Society fought bitterly; it will soon arrive at it,” says Joan Taylor, have announced to the world, as chair of the energy committee for be the largest municipally owned we have, that we’re going to foster wind project in the nation. The the Sierra Club’s desert chapter. and support renewable energy, “Trespassing on land and putting city has passed a green building that we’re going to open our ordinance requiring a 20 percent monuments in and building brand- doors to the renewables industry, new transmission corridors through increase in energy effi ciency for then we have got to live up to our all new construction. But to meet ecologically sensitive areas, and promises.” then lying about it -- that just isn’t its 35 percent by 2020 goal, Nahai a good way to start.” And besides, as Schwarzenegger says, it still needs transmission to remarked in his Yale speech, “If the Salton Sea. Nahai, who takes pride in his you can’t put solar panels in the environmental credibility -- he’s a Vince Signorotti agrees. “I don’t Mojave Desert, where the hell can believe any of the (utilities) are father of three who often invokes you put them?” his children’s future when making going to get to their magic number his case for the planet -- appears “How about on the rooftops and without the Salton Sea being pained by the controversy. He has parking lots of the cities that developed,” he says. “It’s just an served on the local water board, actually use the power?” suggests incredibly important resource.” on the board of the League of Taylor. “If you’re worried about Conservation Voters, and it was energy security, generate it