The Morro Bay Power Plant: Past, Present and Future - Part 3
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(Continued)
Alternative uses of the property also crossed other minds after the sale was completed in 2006 to LS Power Group, an energy consortium based in New York City. It opened up a whole new opportunity for the public to think about what to replace the plant with for the benefit of the community, the county, businesses, tourists, fish, birds and other wildlife - everyone.
As the Santa Lucian, monthly newspaper of the local Santa Lucia chapter of the Sierra Club, reported shortly afterward:
"A movement has been launched to explore replacing the Morro Bay power plant with visitor-serving enterprises such as a marine museum, hotel, an arts and cultural center, an aquarium or restored habitat - or a combination of these and other ideas - after Duke Energy announced it will sell the old plant.
"The Santa Lucia Chapter helped push the new look at plans for the 107-acre plant site by presenting a public petition to the Morro Bay City Council calling for 'a systematic, open and thorough discussion of the alternatives to the existing plant or building a new one before the City enters into any agreement affecting the future of the property or its use for a power plant.'
"The Council responded by scheduling a public hearing on the idea and heard two hours of comments overwhelmingly in support of alternative uses of the plant site... It was the first time since Duke filed its application with the CEC to build a new plant in 2000 that a majority of the Council had agreed to reconsider its long-standing support of Duke's project."
A student group called Blue Sky, Inc., representing the chapter, then organized to oppose a new plant and to advocate that the site be "converted into an organic marketplace and cultural arts center—a place where tourists can come to visit and experience all that the Central Coast has to offer."
The Council's hearing led to its appointment of two Council members to an ad-hoc committee to explore funding mechanisms for the "decommissioning" of the plant and conversion to some other use.
With Council member and former CAPE board member Melody DeMerit leading the way, the Council in January, 2006, formed the North Embarcadero Waterfront (NEW) Futures Committee, composed of 12 residents of Morro Bay and neighboring communities for the purpose of studying the plant's future. The mission it adopted was to "lead a community-driven process to identify and evaluate alternatives for the power plant site. Our mission will be to create and document a vision that identifies and integrates the diverse perspectives and requirements of our community."
Its final report in July, 2007, recommended the city form a liaison committee "to look at the future of the site" with owners of the plant. One of its goals was to "develop various scenarios and discuss with the public and explore grants and other funding sources" for studying those scenarios and creating a "general plan consistent with sustainable development principles." It estimated a grant of between $150,000 and $200,000 would be needed to pursue those objectives.
The Committee said it wanted to "stay intact" and provide assistance to the city toward those ends. But it has apparently been inactive over the past several years, and the Council has not moved on any of its recommendations.
The way was opened even wider for considering alternative uses of the plant site in September, 2008, when Dynegy announced in a letter to the City Council that it was planning to shut down the Morro Bay power plant by 2015, the first time that there has even been any speculation about when the plant would close, even though its two remaining operative units have run only about 6% of the time in recent years. In the same letter, Dynegy requested a two- year extension of its lease of ocean-front public property to allow discharge of Estuary water used in the plant for cooling into Estero Bay next to Morro Rock. That least expires in 2011, and if the Council refuses to extend the lease, the plant would be forced to close in 2011.
What undoubtedly prompted Dynegy to announce plans to close the plant were federal court and state regulatory developments. In January, 2007, the same United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued another landmark decision requiring existing power plants to use best technology available and prohibiting habitat restoration measures to compensate for the killing of aquatic life in the once-through cooling process - the exact restoration measures (habitat restoration program or HEP) that Duke proposed and the CEC approved to offset the estuarine impacts of the proposed new plant. There was no question that latest court decision applied to the Morro Bay plant.
That decision, which was largely upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, prompted the California State Water Resources Control Board, the state agency that oversees power plant cooling involving public waters, to launch an effort to develop new state regulations on such cooling. The first draft of those regulations in 2008 set timetables for existing plants to stop using once-through cooling, including the Morro Bay plant. It tentatively established 2015 as the deadline for the Morro Bay to stop, although there were loopholes that have yet to be addressed in subsequent drafts.
In the letter to the City Council, Dynegy official Randy Hickock said "continued operation of the plant is unlikely" due to a virtual ban on "the use of sea water for once-through cooling of power plants proposed by the California State Water Resources Control Board...These (state board) regulations have a proposed time-line for compliance, which for Morro Bay would be Jan. 1, 2015. Though the final form of these regulations is subject to modification until they have been ratified by the water board, the proposed compliance date of Jan. 1, 2015, strikes me as a meaningful milestone beyond which continued operation of the plant is unlikely."
The focus now is on the state water board to see if the final regulations have enough teeth in them to stop use of once-through cooling within a reason period of time and to comply with the new federal law. Otherwise, as some environmental groups have discussed, the board may face litigation.
With the future of the plant wide open, a big new idea entered the picture in mid-2009 when a proposal for a renewable energy university research center to replace the power plant was unveiled. The project would "convert the power plant and surrounding site into an Institute for Post Graduate Studies of Alternative Energy and Sustainable Water Studies," according to the web site of the corporation that is behind the idea, Ecobaun, which calls itself a green development company .
Ecobaun says it "operates in the U.S. and internationally," but its owner, Tom Fee, is a Morro Bay resident. Fee has made several presentations to community groups about the institute. It would house an estimated 3,000 faculty and students with possibly other service employees, not counting those who would work at the facility as commuters.
Here is how Ecobaun's web site describes its philosophy and the institute:
"Realistic concepts for safe, affordable and environmentally safe energy production is one of the most critical challenges the world faces today. This is indivisible from the commitment to environmental protection and other sustainable development.
"This facility will cover the entire spectrum of energy research through cooperation and participation by a network of high ranking universities and strong industrial and non-profit enterprises.
"Participating member universities and institutions will provide a broad spectrum of graduate education, in order to train and develop a network of experts in America and extending around the world. Each on-site organization will be based on 'build to suit' long term renewable leaseholds."
In a recent interview, Fee said Cal Poly's "research divisions" would be invited to locate on the institute's campus.
He said he expects to "define the model" for the institute in 2010 and make it public. Fee has said Dynegy is Ecobaun's "partner" in the development but after the model is finalized, the plant owner still has to "buy in" to the project. He estimated it would be two to three years before construction would begin, if everything went as expected.
Fee has said that while the current plant will not operate any longer, a "peaker" gas-fired power unit is planned in a section of the present plant. Whether the plan calls for that unit to be cooled with Estuary or ocean water or some form of closed-cycle cooling was not clear. The development presumably would require approval of the city, the CEC and the Coastal Commission.
So, there are many routes open to the Morro Bay power plant's future, but it remains as uncertain as ever. And more surprises down the road seem inevitable.
Jack McCurdy is co-president and co-founder of CAPE. This article was not written on behalf of CAPE and does not necessarily reflect its views.
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