Many issues were raised during recent public meetings concerning the peaker plant to be built on San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) property across Antonio Boulevard from Ladera Ranch where SDG&E already has a distribution substation. The meetings were largely attended by people who are against the peaker plant being built at this location and the arguments fed into the crowd’s desire to stop this plant. There’s only one problem, all of the arguments presented at the meeting were refuted by the facts.
The impact this facility will have on the community is negligible in every sense of the word. People are panicking because they read so many parts per million of this substance or so many pounds of that substance, and then they argue they’re just trying to protect their children from these harmful pollutants.
Of course, no one would ever argue against protecting the health and welfare of our children. Certainly not me who has been a major public advocate and champion of children’s health and safety for decades.
But has anyone had their garage tested for harmful pollutants after they’ve started their car, or run a test on the very serious pollutants our children are inhaling from the use of paint stripper, fingernail polish remover, Draino, shower cleaner and the myriad other toxic household sprays that fill the household full of strong chemical odors that everyone, including our children, breathe.
Where’s the hue and cry for air quality standards when SUVs with running engines stack up in front of our schools at the beginning and end of each school day. Talk about a toxic soup of pollutants filling our children’s lungs. And speaking of children’s safety who, besides Chuck Gibson, President of the Ladera Ranch Transportation Club, is fighting to lower the speed limits on our community streets before a child gets run over by people who think getting from Point A to Point B is more important than slowing down to ensure the actual safety of our children.
In all honesty, if it’s all about protecting our children, let’s work together and really do some things that will really provide our children with a healthier and safer place to grow up. You can count me in!
I keep hearing that this peaker plant project was kept a secret in order to sneak one by the residents of Ladera Ranch, but nothing could be farther from the truth. There were articles in all of the newspapers that serve this community, including the Orange County Register, the Ladera Post, and the Ladera Times, as well as repeated postings on the major Ladera Ranch websites such as LaderaLife.com, LaderaPortal.com, and LaderaTimes.com. Public meetings were widely publicized, but virtually no one showed up, leading to the logical conclusion that residents got the message and they had no issues with the project.
One person belittled the area newspapers as not a good way to communicate with the public but why would he speak so contemptuously of publications that provide information that this individual needs to know about the community? Why would he not take the time to leaf through any of the publications that serve the community to see if there’s information that affects his life or that of his children? We don’t have a local TV or radio station, so one has to wonder where he gets his information about Ladera Ranch if not from reading the community newspapers or visiting the area websites. Quite frankly, he acted as if ignorance was a virtue.
Communications is a two-way street. Everyone has a responsibility in the process. People can’t ignore the information swirling around them and then later argue that no one told them. It’s like the kid who kills his parents and then begs for the mercy of the court because he’s an orphan. People have to take the time to find out what’s going on in their communities and in their lives.
There are people in Ladera Ranch who need this peaker electricity when there is a severe demand on the power grid, such as during forest fires and heat waves. Has anyone given any thought to the deleterious affect a brown out or, worse yet, the loss of power all together would have on the health and safety of our children — and the rest of the community for that matter? You don’t have to take a poll to realize that hundreds, if not thousands, of residents rely on a steady flow of electricity to maintain their health.
Someone said that brown outs were preferable to having the peaker plant installed. Who’s he kidding! He’d be the first one to scream bloody murder if the he couldn’t run the vaporizer his ill child needed because of a brown out. Did this individual keep his windows open during the recent wildfires that swept through the area so that toxic soot could fill his house or did he seal his house up tight and run the air conditioner? We all know the answer to that question. What he may not have known was that wildfires severely tax the electric power grid when power lines are destroyed.
I am not against people investigating the things that may affect their lives. In fact, as a professional journalist, I have spent a lifetime encouraging people to stay plugged in to the news about what’s going on in their lives and take action if necessary. If this peaker plant can be shown to pose a real harm to the community, its construction should be stopped. But for people to come forward at the 11th hour to stop a project that has been widely communicated for the better part of a year is, quite frankly, a bit boorish.
And arguments that the power company is making a profit off this electricity as if "profit" was a four-letter word would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous. Do these people have no concept of how the American free enterprise system works? Do they have no idea of where the money comes from to pay their bills? Do they expect companies to provide vital services, such as electricity, for free? Would they?
The people involved in the construction of this peaker plant have agreed to hold off the start of construction until concerned residents have had a chance to learn more about the issues being raised. They have promised to bring in an air quality expert to a subsequent meeting to answer citizens’ questions. The time and place of future meetings will be announced in area newspapers and websites, but this would mean that the people who claim they knew nothing about this project would have to actually read them to know what’s going on.
Life in today’s complex world is a series of trade offs. Do we speed through our neighborhoods and endanger the lives of our children in the neighborhood in order to make an important meeting on time, or do we slow down and run the risk of looking like a fool breaking into the meeting five minutes late? Think about it! We all make these decisions every day of our lives. In a perfect world . . . well, there’ the rub, it isn’t a perfect world!
Jim Schmitt, Editor and Publisher