GREEN PARTY OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY INTERVENTION ON THE METCALF POWER PLANT PROPOSAL

Comments before the California Energy Commission (CEC) Workshop on the CEC Staff Issues Identification Report, August 19, 1999, San Jose, California

Good evening. I am Michael Stanley-Jones. I serve as an at-large representative to the County Council of the Green Party of Santa Clara County and chair our party's Ecology Working Group.

The Green Party of Santa Clara County has approximately 4,800 members, including many who are residents of San Jose. For the past four months our members have taken an active interest in the Metcalf power plant proposal. At the request of the party membership, the Ecology Working Group undertook a review of the proposal for the purpose of making recommendations to the party local.

Our review activity consisted of

• Discussing potential impacts and concerns with area residents, local agency staff and community representatives,
• Reading press accounts and promotional literature distributed by the Calpine/Bechtel,
• Attending several public hearings and workshops on the project,
• Reading the California Energy Commission's Staff Issues Identification Report, and
• Sounding out experts within our local's membership for advice and recommendations.

On August 10, The Green Party of Santa Clara County decided at its regular monthly General Meeting to oppose the Calpine/Bechtel Metcalf Energy Center project.

Our reasons for opposing this project are:

First -- the Calpine/Bechtel proposal fails the test of sustainable development. As we heard at the July Public Hearing from Calpine's own spokesperson, the project is premised on a near-term 3-fold increase in regional electricity demand. That increase implies growth, both in resource consumption of non-renewable fossil fuels and of the population of the South Bay beyond what we believe the people of this region consider sustainable and sane. As Greens, we believe our community needs to learn to consume less energy, especially less non-renewable fossil fuel-derived energy, if we are to live within the carrying capacity of our planet. The Metcalf project fails this test of sustainable development.

Second -- the project presents unacceptable environmental hazards and would result in irreversible harm to ecosystems and species in Santa Clara County and neighboring countries. Of particular concern are the threats to drinking water resources from the reliance, admittedly as a backup system, of the plant on local groundwater.

For its primary supply, the Metcalf Plant would use upwards of 5 million gallons per day (mgd) of recycled water provided by the South Bay Recycling system. That may sound like good news for advocates of recycled water -- the City of San Jose is desperately trying to find a market for 70 mgd of its reclaimed water. However such a water source cannot be counted upon in a region prone to periodic drought, nor in a world suffering from global climate change.

The time will come when local groundwater resources will be required to keep this plant operating. CEC staff have suggested a few of the consequences of that day: draw-down of groundwater resources, the drying up of local wells, land subsidence, and the accelerated movement of existing underground contamination into drinking water supply wells.

Approximately half of Santa Clara County's drinking water comes from groundwater. We must stop gambling with this precious resource.

We are appalled that Calpine/Bechtel has proposed operating this plant in such a way that carbon monoxide (C0) emissions would be 67% to 400% higher than currently permitted under by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District standards (10-24 ppm vs 6 ppm).

The scheme of purchasing so-called pollution credits or offsets for this terrible load of pollution is, in our opinion, fraudulent. It reminds me of the Russian author Gogol's story Dead Souls, about a con artist who enters a provincial city and begins buying up the rights to "dead souls." Eventually the town's leaders get caught in the speculative fever and demand for dead souls heats up.

The current pollution trading systems allows companies to buy credits that are banked by corporations, often after their factories shut down. Santa Clara Valley has recently lost 15 industrial facilities, according to a report issued this summer by the City of San Jose; there should be a lot of dead souls in the bank waiting for a suitable buyer. Let's not let our citizens become the suckers who accept these dead souls and the pollution that comes with them.

Third -- review of the project is being conducted in isolation from other similar projects being proposed or developed up-and-down the state, without reference to cumulative environmental impacts on our state as a whole. Projects in Pittsburg, and Sutter, California have recently been approved by the CEC; additional power plant projects are in the works in Monterey County, and in Alviso-Milpitas and Newark, in the East Bay. Metcalf is but one of nine power plant proposals now progressing through the Energy Commission process.

The impacts of these projects should be addressed in a comprehensive fashion. Greens call for an end of divide-and-conquer tactics by energy industry proponents. The citizens of this state deserve the chance to review and judge their energy future holistically, not piecemeal.

Fourth -- this natural gas project depends on non-renewable fossil fuels to the neglect of renewable energy sources. These include solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, hydrogen fuel cell, and small hydroelectric power sources. Let the 21st century be known as the century of sustainable, renewable, safe energy: that's where our future lies.

In closing, we would ask a few critical questions:

Is Calpine/Bechtel planning on using ammonia to mitigate NOX emissions harmful to endangered species and native habitat in the area? How large would the volume of ammonia stored on-site be? What kind of risks would this pose to human health and the surrounding environment?

In a worst-case scenario -- an industrial accident involving an ammonia gas explosion, for example -- how many plants, animals and people would you predict could die?

Does it make sense to locate a plant using toxic gases close to a major rail line? In the event of a train derailment in the vicinity of the plant, what possible consequences might occur? What kind of risk analysis is Calpine/Bechtel planning to perform to investigate these risks?

And finally, what are the cumulative exposure risks from hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) in terms of additional cancers per one million members of the population -- the standard set by the federal Clean Air Act -- we can expect from the plant's operation? Do additional cancer risks from HAPs violate our society's commitment to environmental justice, that is, do they burden children, low-income and minority communities disproportionately over the County's general population?

Thank you.

[Michael Stanley-Jones has served as one of five elected at-large representatives to the County Council (Central Committee) of the Green Party of Santa Clara County since 1998. He is a member of the Santa Clara County Pollution Prevention Committee and Environmental Coordinator of CLEAN South Bay, a coalition of environmental organizations seeking elimination of toxic contaminants from the San Francisco Bay. He can be reached at (408) 296-7182, or by e-mail: [email protected].]

Michael Stanley-Jones