Big Morongo ACEC
(Area of Critical Environmental Concern)
Proposed
Is this appropriate for Big Morongo ACEC?
Take a photo tour of the Green Path North route through the ACEC and you decide.
Is this appropriate for Big Morongo ACEC?
Please tell the Bureau of Land Management and the California Energy Commission that the Big Morongo Area of Critical Environmental Concern is no place for Green Path North or any new energy corridor. Ask for their support in protecting this scenic and fragile desert nature preserve.
Write to:
WRITE LETTERS
Stop Green Path North
in the Big Morongo ACEC
The Big Morongo Canyon Preserve was designated an area of critical environmental concern (ACEC) in 1982 due to its unique wildlife habitat. Now the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power is trying to establish Green Path North high transmission power lines through the ACEC. The GPN Project will begin with a 330-foot right-of-way and up to 220-foot-tall transmission towers bulldozed and blasted for over ten miles through the ACEC.
And that's not all. According to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) (to which LADWP has applied for a right-of-way), approval of the LADWP Green Path North transmission line route through the ACEC would necessarily entail amending the California Desert Conservation Area Plan, under which the ACEC is managed. This amendment would designate a new energy corridor through the ACEC that would be between 2 and 5 miles wide. All future oil, water, gas, and additional transmission line projects in the area would then be built in this approved corridor.
LADWP is also seeking to establish this new energy corridor through another federal-level agency. As part of the West-Wide Energy Corridor process, LADWP requested that the Department of Energy consider the same route through the ACEC for establishment of a new energy corridor, once again open to transmission lines and gas, oil and water pipe lines.
Is this environmental destruction appropriate for an area of "critical environmental concern?" The answer to that question is obvious to all but LADWP and the utility-scale energy developers who are using their multi-million dollar deep pockets to push through this unnecessary new corridor. LADWP can transmit geothermal energy from the Imperial Valley directly to Los Angeles down the existing I-10 energy corridor. It is greed that has kept LADWP from working with Southern California Edison (SCE) to utilize the I-10 corridor.
And what logic-defying rationale is LADWP using to convince the BLM, the California Energy Commission, and the federal Department of Energy that a massive energy corridor is okay in this ACEC and adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park? Well, there is an existing local distribution line that runs along the route through the ACEC. This small SCE line was installed 50 years ago, before Big Morongo Canyon Preserve was recognized as an ACEC. Here's a comparison of scale between the existing and proposed power poles.
Construction of a power line project of this scale in an ACEC? And, designation of a new 2- to 5-mile-wide energy corridor with the potential for multiple power lines, as well as gas, oil, and water pipe lines. Clearly Green Path North is not appropriate for the Big Morongo ACEC.
John Kalish, Field Manager
Bureau of Land Management
Palm Springs Office
P.O. Box 581260
North Palm Springs, CA 92258-1260
Email: Contact via Webform (add
ATTN: John Kalish in the
Subject block)
Phone: 760-251-4800
Fax: 760-251-4899
Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, Chair
California Energy Commission
1516 Ninth Street, MS-31
Sacramento, CA 95814
Email: CGraber@energy.state.ca.us
Phone: 916-654-5036
Fax: 916-653-3478