Center Takes San Diego Power-line Challenge to California Supreme Court
1/29/2009--A month after the California Public Utilities Commission approved the controversial Sunrise Powerlink, one of the biggest transmission-line ventures ever proposed in the state, last Thursday the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the California Supreme Court to review the approval -- and hopefully quash it. In blatant violation of the state's premiere environmental protection and land-use law, the California Environmental Quality Act, the Commission failed to require that the 123-mile line be used for renewable energy and approved an environmentally detrimental southern route for the line -- straight through the Cleveland National Forest, protected reserves, and the habitat of rare species like the Hermes copper butterfly and arroyo toad. The Commission ignored a recommendation by one of its own commissioners to condition approval of the line on requiring the line to deliver renewable energy; it also ignored a recommendation by an administrative law judge to reject the line altogether (by far the best decision).
Said Ileene Anderson, the Center's public lands deserts director: "As approved by the Commission, the Sunrise Transmission Project would sacrifice sensitive public lands and vital habitat without any guarantee the line will be used to deliver clean energy."
Read more in the San Diego Union-Tribune. http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2009/san-diego-union-tribune-01-23-2009.html
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