ARGUMENT: “A new distributing station is needed to
relieve the existing distributing station in the Palisades village. If the DWP wants to build it on the lot next
to Marquez Charter Elementary School, it must be necessary.”
FACT: The DWP has
never objectively or fully demonstrated that a new electrical distributing
station is absolutely necessary, aside from stating that increased and future
demands in electrical consumption across the Palisades will need to be
met. The DWP has never objectively or
fully demonstrated why such future needs cannot be met by combining various
alternative sustainable energy solutions – such as, demand response programs,
energy conservation programs, building efficiency retrofits, local renewable energy
generation etc. But even assuming that a new station were the
only way to relieve the existing station, there is nothing to suggest why it
must be built on the lot next to Marquez Charter Elementary School.
The DWP has never adequately explained why the new distributing
station “must” be in the middle of Marquez Knolls, let alone next door to
Marquez Charter, except to say that it is technically or logistically desirable
to do so because its main electrical “trunk line” runs along Sunset Boulevard,
through Marquez Avenue, and back to Sunset.
DWP engineers have acknowledged that it is neither impossible nor
unrealistic to expect the DWP to make technical or logistical accommodations to
extend power from an area that is not in the “bull’s eye” of their preferred
area; it is just a matter of cost, efficiency and expediency.
The key to placing a new distributing station in service as
quickly as possible is an appropriate location.
Insisting on a clearly unsuitable or inappropriate site – i.e., the Marquez lot – will guarantee
complications during the environmental review process and an inevitable legal
challenge. To ensure that the new
station is built and placed into service in a timely manner, the most logical
course of action is to find a site that is suitable and appropriate, and pursue
it with all deliberate speed.
ARGUMENT: “If the DWP wants to build an electrical
distributing station next door to Marquez Charter Elementary School, it must be
because it’s the best place to put it.”
FACT: To the contrary,
DWP’s own recent studies have confirmed that the Marquez lot is actually the
worst environmentally ranked site among current options.
The DWP originally selected the lot next door to Marquez
Charter Elementary School in the 1960s.
Around 1967/1968, DWP conducted a study of future electricity
demands. It concluded that an additional
distributing station was needed in the Palisades and it desired to build it in
the Marquez Knolls area. In 1969, DWP
completed a site selection report focusing on three potential sites within
Marquez Knolls. Ultimately, DWP settled
on the Marquez lot mainly because of its low cost – about $84,700 at the
time. This is compared to land costs of
over $350,000 for each of the other two sites then under consideration. The remarkably low cost of the Marquez lot is
attributed to the site being undeveloped and its location within a known
unstable area. There does not appear to have
been any technical review of the lot’s suitability for a potential distributing
station site. When the acquisition
negotiations with the land owner(s) failed, DWP proceeded to take the land by
force through condemnation proceedings.
In 1971, DWP obtained a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) to
construct a distributing station on the Marquez lot, and it did so without
having to undergo any environmental review that would be required today by
current laws and regulations. Afterward,
DWP posted a sign on the front fence of the Marquez lot to indicate that it
would be site for a future distributing station. For unknown reasons, DWP shelved the project
for nearly four decades.
Around 2009/2010, DWP renewed its interest. In addition to the existing Marquez lot, DWP
decided to look around for additional potential sites. In 2011, DWP hired environmental consultants
to undertake a “Comparative Site Evaluation,” which studied and compared four
potential sites – the Marquez lot; another site that was considered in the
original 1969 site selection study; plus two new sites. This new Comparative Site Evaluation
determined that the Marquez lot was in fact the lowest environmentally ranked
site – with unsatisfactory grades in 6 of 10 categories of environmental impacts.
The low ranking of the Marquez lot was underscored
by “fatally flawed” (Grade “F”) geology that, according to DWP’s own consultant,
would result in a likely significant and unavoidable impact, where mitigation
would probably not be available or feasible to reduce the environmental impact
to less than significant. Beyond the “F”
in geology, the Marquez lot also received unsatisfactory “D” grades in (construction)
noise, (construction) transportation/traffic, air quality/climate change,
biological resources, and aesthetic impacts. Around the same time, DWP staff completed a draft
“Site Selection Report Addendum,” which identified a new location – an approximately
1.2 acre L-shaped parcel wrapping around Fire Station 23 and located within
Topanga State Park (at Sunset Blvd. and Los Liones Dr.) – which was ranked highest
by the Comparative Site Evaluation, as the DWP’s most preferred site.
Accordingly, in late 2011, the DWP broached the possibility
of constructing its new electrical distributing station on the Fire Station 23 site
with the community. After meeting with a
handful of nearby residents, DWP apparently concluded that there would not be
community support for constructing the distributing station on or near that
state park land, but that there would be community support for doing so next
door to Marquez Charter Elementary School.
Shortly thereafter, in February 2012, DWP publicly announced
its focus on the Marquez lot, contrary to its recent studies confirming numerous
environmental problems with the Marquez Lot and finding it to be the lowest
environmentally ranked among all the options being considered.
ARGUMENT: “Wherever you put an electrical distributing
station in the Palisades, it poses a fire risk.”
FACT: Of all the options weighed by the DWP, only the Marquez lot, given the unique
confluence of all the environmental risk factors for this particular location,
will pose the highest threat of
cumulative danger to more than 600 public school children as young as age
5. If a fire erupts immediately next
door and sets the canyon of dry brush and/or school ablaze, evacuating hundreds
of children, staff and volunteers quickly enough from the school is sure to be
catastrophic. This is especially true
because of the unique “horse shoe” shape of Marquez Avenue – ensuring limited
means of ingress and egress through the residential community. Proposing to bring the risk of fire and
explosion to a public school under these circumstances is astonishing.
ARGUMENT: “State of
the art design and compliance with modern building/engineering codes will
ensure that DWP’s new distributing station is safe enough. And if anything were to happen at the
electrical distributing station, the DWP’s systems would shut it down before it
got out of hand.”
FACT: There are
explosions and fires at electrical distributing stations around the U.S.
virtually daily. It’s a question of
“when,” not “if,” given the data. No
doubt, DWP intends to build a state of the art station that complies with
modern codes intended to minimize risks.
But despite the best made plans, precautions and intentions, mishaps
happen. Accordingly to DWP’s own
records, since as recent as 2008, there have been at least 28 incidents of
explosion, fire, flashovers, and/or smoke at all different DWP distributing
stations, which presumably are regularly maintained and inspected “to
code.” In describing one such “major
fire” incident, DWP’s notes report that the distributing station “had an old
induction regulator fail. The smoke from
the oil fire filled the room and caused other equipment and buses to flashover
taking out the entire station.” While a
newly constructed up-to-code station theoretically should not experience such
an incident in the short term, the possibility of such a single mishap
occurring 15 years or any time in the future, directly next to 600+ elementary
school children – in a “red” high fire risk zone, in an enclosed residential
neighborhood with limited ingress/egress – is not acceptable.
Indeed, this is precisely why there is City policy that
prohibits siting of any new schools next to such high risk facilities. In
2005, the Los Angeles Board of Education adopted a “Siting of New
Schools Near Industrial Facilities” resolution defining “high risk
facilities” as those “whose normal operation presents a risk of
explosion.” That resolution prohibits new schools to be placed next to
high risk facilities unless risks are mitigated to below levels of
significance, and further directs the Los Angeles Unified School District to
employ “whatever legal means available to oppose” the proposed issuance of
permits “associated with industrial activity on property within 500 feet of a
District School” and to “prevent the introduction of any new significant risk
to school occupants.” Placing the proposed distributing station next to
Marquez Charter Elementary School would yield the exact situation that this
policy aims to prevent.
The California Department of Education also has adopted
policies
requiring placement of schools to be guided by “health and safety concerns,”
with screening criteria in this order of importance, “1. Safety, 2.
Location, 3, Environment, . . .,” and has enacted regulations
mandating specific distances between schools and power lines. In
contrast, the DWP glaringly omits any safety consideration in its site
selection criteria here. When considering placing a new power
distributing station next to a school, decision-makers must prioritize safety
concerns just the same.
ARGUMENT: “The proposed use of the Marquez lot for an
electrical distributing station appears to have been on the city plan for
decades. The DWP sign on the vacant lot
next to Marquez Charter has been there for 60 years. The people living in Marquez Knolls knew this
day was coming when they moved into the area.”
FACT: Marquez Charter
Elementary School and the surrounding residential area were established in the
1950s. DWP knew of the elementary school
next door when it forced condemnation of the Marquez lot in 1969. Although not legally required to conduct any in-depth
environmental analysis when it obtained its CUP for a future distributing
station in 1971, it was reasonably foreseeable that such an industrial facility
next to the pre-existing elementary school would cause significant
environmental impacts to the adjacent “sensitive receptor” – i.e., the school. As discussed above, after obtaining its CUP,
DWP hung a sign on the front fence of the vacant Marquez lot to indicate that
it would be site for a future distributing station. Four decades passed but nothing was built. Today, the sign neither signifies any current
entitlement for DWP to build a distributing station there, nor does it render
the site environmentally suitable for a distributing station. The fact is, upon further investigation, both
DWP and the community now know there are a host of environmental problems and
negative impacts that render the Marquez lot fundamentally unsuitable for a
distributing station. And even DWP’s
staff now acknowledges that its 1971 CUP is no longer valid. In short, notwithstanding “the sign,” DWP has
no current right to construct a distributing station on the Marquez lot. Today’s environmental and planning laws and
regulations require DWP to pass muster under a full environmental review and
entitlement/permit application process before building anything there.
ARGUMENT: “This is nothing but a ‘NIMBY’ (‘Not In My
Backyard’) issue for people who care about their property values.”
FACT: LAUSD
Superintendent Dr. John Deasy and School Board Members Steve Zimmer and Kayser
Bennett (as well as their respective staff, including personnel focused on
health and safety issues) are adamant opponents of the DWP’s proposal to build
an electrical distributing station next to Marquez Charter Elementary
School. It cannot conceivably be a
“NIMBY” issue to these civil servants who take seriously their duty to protect
the children, faculty and staff at the school.
Similarly, the Coalition to Keep Marquez Charter Safe is
singularly focused on protecting the public elementary school from the hazards
of having an electrical distributing station immediately adjacent to it. The more-than-500 people who have signed the
Coalition’s petition against placing DS104 next to Marquez Charter include (1)
those who live and work across the Palisades; (2) parents of students attending
Marquez Charter Elementary who live within and outside of the Palisades; (3)
past, present and future parents of Marquez Charter students; (4) parents who
rent homes in the Palisades for the sole purpose of being able to enroll their
children at Marquez Charter and, therefore, have no concerns about “property
values;” and (5) medical professionals who have independently formed opinions
about the risks of putting an electrical distributing station next to hundreds
of elementary aged children. None of
them is saying “not in my backyard”; rather, they are saying “not next to my
schoolyard.” Indeed, objectors,
including Coalition leaders, have proposed for DWP’s consideration other
potential sites within DWP’s identified “load center,” including properties
within the same general Marquez Knolls area.
Nonetheless,
the fact is that anywhere the proposed distributing station ultimately goes in
the Palisades will have a negative impact on the area’s property values. Thus, the impact to property values is not a
unique concern with respect to the Marquez lot.
What is unique to the Marquez lot is the confluence of numerous
reasonably foreseeable significant environmental impacts and risk factors
involved – i.e., geological problems
due to its location on a landslide, risks of being in a red fire hazard zone,
and exacerbation of environmental impacts due to its location next door to a
public elementary school with 600+ children approximately age 10 and
under. In technical terms, Marquez
Charter Elementary School is a “sensitive receptor” that warrants extra
consideration when evaluating the potential environmental impacts of proposed
projects nearby. For example, the air
quality impacts due to excavation activities would be far greater on young school
children than say, an industrial warehouse.
Accordingly, the determining factor that renders the Marquez lot
particularly unsuitable and inappropriate for the proposed distributing station
is its location directly next to Marquez Charter Elementary School –
irrespective of any impact to property values.
ARGUMENT: “Those who have any concerns about EMF are
‘tin foil hat crazy.’”
FACT: The California
Public Utilities Commission, the World Health Organization, the U.S. Center for
Disease Control and even the LADWP each maintain a website stating their
respective recommendations, for instance, that people keep their distance from
EMF (both electric and magnetic). While
many people may claim that the causation between EMF and childhood illnesses,
like leukemia or asthma, is “unproven,” the reality is that it is equally
“unproven” that there is no such causation.
Exposing thousands (over the course of many years) of elementary aged
public school children to an avoidable, unknown risk is unacceptable.
ARGUMENT: “The Coalition is anonymous.”
FACT: There are more
than 500 people who have signed the petition opposing the DWP’s proposal to
build an electrical distributing station next door to Marquez Charter
Elementary School; their names have been disclosed to several civil servants
and can be viewed on-line. Founding and
active members of the Coalition have never hidden their identities; instead,
they have canvassed their neighborhoods, introduced themselves at town hall
meetings, met with local and state representatives, signed their names to
correspondence and written articles to the Palisadian-Post in an effort to
oppose the DWP.
ARGUMENT: “These rabble rousers have convinced everyone
that the electrical distributing station is everyone’s problem.”
