A state senator from Los Angeles – and candidate for superintendent of public instruction – is demanding that a Bay Area community college stop fighting the planned construction of a natural gas power plant near campus.
Photo by Mark WarnerSen. Gloria Romero
Using her position as chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, Democratic Sen. Gloria Romero has threatened to audit the district's finances and hold oversight hearings if officials refuse to back down, despite concerns from students and faculty about pollution drifting into the school.
Houston-based Calpine Corp. in February won an air permit from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District – the final approval needed to start building the Russell City Energy Center, a 600-megawatt natural gas power plant.
The company expects to begin construction this fall on the plant at the corner of Depot Road and Cabot Boulevard in Hayward. The plant will use twin combined-cycle generators located on 19 acres, the Contra Costa Times has reported. It would sell its output to PG&E, creating power for use throughout the Bay Area.
Chabot College is located about two miles downwind.
A group of faculty and staff members, the community college district's board of trustees and the district chancellor have joined several other groups to fight the power plant. The district's board of trustees in March approved a resolution to appeal the air permit with the Environmental Appeals Board of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
In a March 18 letter to Chabot-Las Positas Community College District Chancellor Joel Kinnamon, Romero urged the board to drop its appeal. She threatened to hold an oversight committee hearing or request an audit of the district's finances if it continues to seek legal action:
It is unclear why the College would dedicate its scarce resources to oppose a project that has taken over nine years to permit and been reviewed and approved by all of the appropriate agencies.
... If you choose to continue to pursue this, I will expect a full accounting of all your expenditures to-date (both monetary and staff time), an explanation of your reasoning, and the factual issues that you believe have not been addressed by the myriad state and federal permitting agencies. This accounting may come in the form of an oversight committee hearing or through an audit request to the California State Auditor.
Romero argued that the power plant won't significantly increase air pollution.
The result of this very lengthy, robust and exhaustive public permitting process is a facility that meets, or in many cases exceeds, all applicable state and federal requirements. In fact, the air permit which you seek to appeal has been characterized by Jack Broadbent, the BAAQMD's Air Pollution Control Officer, as 'the most stringent the Air District has ever issued.'
She also championed the project because of its economic impact. It is expected to produce 650 temporary union jobs and 25 full-time jobs, plus tax revenue.
Indeed, some of the most vocal supporters of the power plant during the air district's January 21 public hearing were representatives from several labor unions that stand to get jobs. Among the speakers was a business manager for Laborers Local 304, Alameda County.
That union is affiliated with the California State Council of Laborers, whose political action committee contributed $5,000 this January to Romero's campaign for state superintendent of schools.
In his March 30 response to Romero's letter, Kinammon asked the senator to switch to the college's side on the matter. He argued that students and faculty at three colleges, an elementary school and a middle school are all at "ground zero for greenhouse gas emission fallout including carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and particular matter (PM) pollution." He also said the air modeling used by Calpine and relied upon by the air district is flawed.
In other words, he vowed to keep fighting: "Simply ignoring the construction of a 600-megawatt thermal power plant within 1.25 miles of Chabot College and the plant's resulting emissions of millions of tons of pollution annually would be a dereliction of our responsibility to the students, faculty, staff and to the taxpayers of our District. Rest assured that we have and will proceed with due diligence and a continued prudent record of legal restraint."
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