Subject: Proposed power plant may pollute Hayward
From: "Joanne L Gardiner, Broker"
Date: Sun, March 11, 2007 12:20 am
To: "Joanne Gardiner"


To Hayward residents and business associates, I am sending you a
news article I just received. I have highlighted critical points.
The proposed power plant in Hayward is getting close to reality
unless you and I and other responsible residents stand up to the City
Council and the California Energy Commission. After you read this
article, I have some additional information.


Proposed power plant may pollute Hayward
By Matt O'Brien, STAFF WRITER
Inside Bay Area Article 03/10/2007

HAYWARD — Supporters of a proposed Hayward power plant expect to achieve an important victory this spring when the Bay Area Air Quality Management District releases a report that says the project meets environmental standards.

But that doesn't mean the gas-burning Eastshore Energy Center won't pollute Hayward's air.

Brian Lusher, an air district engineer, revealed this week that the Eastshore plant will meet all of the agency's "rules and regulations" because the plant developer, Texas-based Tierra Energy, can make up for the pollution it creates by buying credits to reduce pollution elsewhere.

"We're a regional agency so we try to take into account the regional effects," Lusher said.

Lusher's brief comments, revealed only after intense grilling by a Hayward city councilman during a crowded Tuesday hearing, marked the first time most Hayward residents knew anything about the credit program.

According to documents obtained Friday from the California Energy Commission, the commission's executive director, B.B. Blevins, has allowed Tierra to keep details of its proposed credit exchange confidential because the information is a potential "trade secret" that, if revealed, could damage the company's comparative advantage over rival developers.

Blevins, in a Dec. 21 letter to Tierra attorney Jane Luckhardt, wrote that it was "reasonable" and in the "public interest" for Tierra to keep the information classified.

But, he continued, it should only remain confidential "until that point when public participation in review of your proposed offsets becomes necessary."

Whether that public discussion has begun yet has been a point of contention in Hayward.

Officially, according to the Blevins' letter, it begins when the regional air quality district releases a preliminary determination on whether the Eastshore project complies with environmental standards. That report is scheduled to be released in April.

But as Hayward residents prepare for their fourth public hearing on the plant this year — one energy commission meeting in January, one Hayward Planning Commission hearing in February and two Hayward City Council hearings this month — some residents and local officials still feel left in the dark about the true impacts the plant is likely to have on the area.

Michael Toth, who lives less than a mile downwind from the Clawiter Road site where Tierra wants to build the plant, said the credit exchange means his neighborhood will bear an unfair level of pollution.

"The purchase of credit essentially allows a company to move pollution from one part of the Bay Area to another," Toth said. "I don't think the laws in this state have recognized the problems that can be created as an abuse of the credit system."

Gerard Clum, president of Life Chiropractic College West, located directly across the railroad tracks from the site, is also skeptical.

"I think the biggest thing from where I sit is with the particulate matter discharge," Clum said. "(Credits) are fine for the region, but it doesn't do much for Hayward."

The Hayward City Council is scheduled to vote on the proposed power plant on Tuesday. The majority appears strongly opposed to it and likely to shoot it down. But the council has been tasked to look mostly at land-use and zoning issues, not environmental concerns.

Greg Trewitt, a Tierra vice president and engineer, said credits will play an important role in the project's compliance, as it does with power plant projects throughout the state.

Trewitt said the chief concern Tierra must address is with fine particulate matter, which, unlike other problem pollutants, is typically a bigger problem during the winter. Eastshore will be a peaker plant, designed especially for summer periods of peak energy demand.

But Hayward and most of the surrounding region is already in a "nonattainment" status for particulate matter, meaning the pollution is already at levels considered unacceptable, according to the air district. Anything added to that mix must be mitigated.

Trewitt said that along with buying credits, the company is looking at paying for some kind of "fireplace retrofit" program for local residents.

The City Council will vote at 8 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, Council Chambers, 777 B St., Hayward.

State law gives responsibility over studying and regulating power plant emissions to the regional air district and the state energy commission. The commission, not local leaders, has final authority on whether Tierra gets a license to build the plant.

The energy commission has scheduled a five-hour "issue resolution workshop" beginning at 3 p.m. March 19, also at City Hall, in Room 2A.

And the developer, Tierra Energy, is holding a community meeting at 7 p.m. April 16 at Life Chiropractic College West, 25001 Industrial Blvd., Hayward.

All three meetings are open to the public.

Matt O'Brien can be reached at (510) 293-2473 or
mattobrien(AT)dailyreviewonline.com.

I hope you will attend these meetings and also write the city council
before next Tuesday. I have a page on my web site with the Mayor's and
council members contact information:
http://www.joannegardiner.com/ProposedPowerPlantinHayward.html

It is also essential to email your concerns to the California Energy
Commission at: PAO(AT)energy.state.ca.us since that agency is the final decision maker. The following link is to the California Energy
Commission's Public Adviser's Office contact page:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/public_adviser/index.html

This is such a critical issue I hope you will act on it now and send
emails to Hayward's Mayor and Councilmembers and also to the Energy
Commission. Please do not put off writing them.

After sending your emails, please forward this letter to all the people
you know who live in Hayward, do business in Hayward, or might be
concerned about the wind blowing contaminated air to their area.

Best regards,
Joanne
--
Joanne L. Gardiner, Broker, e-PRO Realtor®
Advantage Realty - 510-429-4800
Website: http://www.JoanneGardiner.com

"None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson