Controversy has erupted again regarding complaints by the City of Lancaster that the proposed Palmdale power plant will result in undue air pollution that will waft its way downwind. The power plant, expected to come online at a cost of more than one billion dollars, has become a sore spot between the two cities.
Lancaster believes the location is too close to its residents and may result in unsafe health conditions; it’s downwind from Lancaster and city officials want it stopped.
“The problem is the location, and where they actually put the power plant,” Lancaster Vice Mayor Marvin Crist said recently.
Now County Supervisor Mike Antonovich has been implicated in the latest example of a so-called “war of words” between rival mayors R. Rex Parris of Lancaster and Jim Ledford of Palmdale. After a preliminary vote in mid-December by the Antelope Valley Air Quality Management District (AVAQMD) apparently cleared the way for construction, Crist told the media that the supervisor unseated a veteran member of the board who opposed the plant and replaced him—a day before the meeting—with a new board member who cast the deciding vote.
“He pulled out an individual with 15 years experience,” Crist said. “He pulled out an individual who is the founding member of the AVAQMD. He pulled out an individual that has more experience than anyone else on that board so he could control the vote.” Crist claimed the public was not allowed to speak. “This is not what you do as a public official; you don’t just put pawns where they can rubber stamp what you want.”
Why select a new member? “After a long and intensive review of all aspects of this project, the best course of action was to choose an appointee that would ensure that the process was sound and with no appearance of conflict,” said Tony Bell, media liaison for Antonovich. He added that the supervisor is “extremely knowledgeable” on Antelope Valley issues and the significance of projects that impact the region. “After a long and intensive review of all aspects of this project,” Bell continued, “the best course of action was to choose an appointee that would ensure that the process was sound and with no appearance of conflict.”
On December 18 at Antelope Valley College, the board voted 4-3 at the end of a six-hour meeting attended by almost 500 people. They discussed the transfer of what are called “emissions credits” (or “carbon credits”) which are part of a national economic strategy for lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Here, a government or other law-making body puts a price on carbon emissions and requires industries to pay for their emissions, thus creating an economic incentive to cut down on pollution. If a company can reduce emissions to below a specified cap, the firm can receive emission credits for each ton of carbon not produced. Palmdale has sold the plant to Summit Power Group in Seattle for about $28 million, with Summit expected to pay for the acquired credits and allow Palmdale to further enhance its financial coffers.
The credits would allow for the plant to discharge 152 tons of nitrogen oxide each year, and 60 tons of volatile organic compounds a year. That’s too much for Lancaster, which claims the only thing they’ll receive is air pollution and not one penny from the sale of the plant. Similar to a power plant running since 1941 in Burbank, the Palmdale facility would be located one mile south of Avenue M—the border of the two cities—and east of Sierra Highway adjacent to Air Force Plant 42. It will be fueled by natural gas and was originally approved by the California Energy Commission in 2011.
Officials at the AVAQMD say their sympathies are with Lancaster but, by law, their hands are tied. “I can understand their concerns,” said Bret Banks, operations manager, in an interview last summer with California City News.org. “Here’s the difficulty that our agency runs into: there are limits and thresholds that are put out in state and federal law, and if an applicant meets those thresholds, then our agency is required to issue a permit.”
Lancaster officials attest that the region’s gusting winds will carry the plant’s estimated 546 tons of pollution straight into their city. Although the sparsely-populated Antelope Valley does not create a particularly large amount of industrial pollutants, its proximity to Los Angeles does expose it to levels of smog that has made the area among the nation’s most heavily polluted zones. Lancaster city hall believes the plant will only exacerbate the problem.
Mayor Parris says the plant will be nothing more than a source of pollution for his city. “We have the highest asthma, the highest emphysema, the highest heart disease, the highest chronic lung problems of any place in the county, and yet they want to put a power plant on our border and blow all that air pollution over these people,” Parris said after the AVAQMD vote.
Palmdale said the plant is far enough away from homes, schools and businesses and will not pose any threat to the health of Lancaster residents. The California Energy Commission (CEC) said in 2011: “There is no competent evidence in this record that the Palmdale Hybrid Power Plant poses any threat to the health of the public in general, or to residents of Lancaster in particular.”
Crist strongly disagrees with the state finding. “We have 12.2 percent of the entire population in the Antelope Valley suffering from asthma; those people, those children would suffer because of that power plant. Again, the problem is the pollution from where it is located. Palmdale gets all the benefits, and Lancaster gets all of the pollution. This is essentially breaking a peanut in front of a child that has allergies to the peanut. It’s not good. It’s still dirty. It’s not a renewable energy.”
Palmdale says the lure of good-paying, full- and part-time jobs will be worth the effort to build and sell the plant. “We have the CEC and EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) approval,” Ledford said. “This will in fact clean the air in the Antelope Valley, and it brings in all kinds of financial benefits. Eight-hundred great-paying jobs would be part of the construction of the power plant—and in an area where we have double-digit unemployment.”
The solar-powered plant will combine clean burning natural-gas-fired turbine technology (said to be more efficient than traditional coal-fired turbines), thereby resulting in a fully integrated “hybrid” design, reportedly the first of its kind in the world. Here’s how it works: The combined-cycle equipment utilizes two natural gas-fired combustion turbine generators, two heat recovery steam generators (HRSG), and one steam turbine generator (STG). The solar thermal equipment uses an array of parabolic collectors (essentially a curved tube with a polished mirror on one end to capture the sun’s energy) to heat a high-temperature working fluid. This hot fluid is used to boil water to generate steam, while the combined-cycle equipment is integrated thermally with the solar equipment at the HRSG generators, and both with utilize the single STG that is part of the plant itself.
The plant will have a nominal electrical output of 617 megawatts; the solar thermal input will provide about 10 percent of the peak power generated by the plant during the daily periods of highest energy demand. The required natural gas is supplied via an 8.7-mile pipeline to be designed and constructed by Southern California Gas Co. Because water is a premium asset in this part of the Mojave Desert, the steam turbine will be “wet cooled” using reclaimed water (treated effluent) from local wastewater treatment plants, employing what is called a “zero liquid discharge” system.
The plant is, in effect, part of two power projects in Kern and Los Angeles counties. According to Paul Caudill, president of MidAmerican Solar, “The Antelope Valley Solar Projects are already creating needed jobs and economic opportunity in local communities, while at the same time, providing direct, long-term environmental benefits. We look forward to continuing our involvement in the Rosamond, Lancaster and Palmdale communities.”
In December, Palmdale issued the seventh installment of its “Fact vs. Fiction” account of so-called misleading statements from Lancaster regarding the plant. Palmdale says its neighbor distributed a so-called “hit mailer” to residents and sent out a newspaper ad to discredit the plant. “It is disgusting that public officials would resort to cheap Photoshop tricks and deceptive statements on a mailer to residents and an add in the local newspaper,” said Palmdale City Attorney Matthew Ditzhazy. Ledford added: “It is sad that the leaders of Lancaster are spending taxpayer dollars—at least $20,000 on the mailing and $4,400 on the ad—to intentionally deceive and mislead their residents. They continue to ignore scientific evidence and lie to their constituents, all for their own sordid political gain. Just because a mayor has killing a power plant on his bucket list doesn’t mean you have the right to ignore the evidence that the project is safe, clean and approved by the California Energy Commission, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Antelope Valley Air Quality Management District.”
