All for one, one for all

In order to balance community perks and the health of the estuary, government agencies and citizens are battling out the future of Duke Energy

BY ANNE QUINN

All power comes at a price, and it’s not just the bottom line on your electric bill.

Residents of Morro Bay have to decide what will make it worthwhile for them to continue being home to a major power plant. This wasn’t an option until Duke Energy applied for a license to modernize the plant, which has been looming over the Morro Bay waterfront since 1954.

Suddenly, everything was up for negotiation. The city could set its price, and it has. Over the next 50 years, it’ll be millions.

Yet, experts at the Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) and the California Energy Commission (CEC) had enough concern about the impact of a water-cooled plant on the health of the estuary to take the time to research other design options.

A workshop to discuss these options held on March 19 was attended by representatives of Duke Energy, Morro Bay City Attorney Robert Shultz, representatives from the CEC, the RWQCB and a citizen’s group Coastal Alliance on Plant Expansion (CAPE)–whose persistence earned them a space at the table.

But a week before anyone heard this evidence, on March 11, the Morro Bay City Council passed a resolution rejecting those options. The reason, according to city manager Robert Hendrix, is that "the option of dry cooling would violate so many city ordinances that the council rejected it on the face of it."

The city says dry cooling and hybrid (wet/dry) cooling would violate 15 ordinances pertaining to noise, visual blight, and zoning, and would also be contrary to its General Plan.

But to opponents, passage of the resolution before the hearing smacks of expediency–and the city’s timing indicated it wasn’t interested in hearing alternatives.

"The city reacted superficially. Its staff may not be qualified to make those determinations," says Morro Bay resident and CAPE member Jack McCurdy. "The staff report omitted discussions of the CEC findings that noise and visual impacts can be mitigated."

Could the real reason for city’s deaf ear be that it has already negotiated too sweet a deal?

The city’s Harbor Fund will get $250,000 a year, or 25 percent of its budget. The assessed tax value of the plant will jump from $180 million annually to an estimated $700 million and Morro Bay should see a large slice of that. Even the beleaguered San Luis Coastal Unified School District’s financial woes will ease, because the district qualifies for 62.6 percent of the increase.

Duke also has agreed to fund the Morro Bay city police and fire staff for assistance during the construction ($2.7 million) and will even bail out the city to the tune of $100,000 if there is a reduction in its bed tax–a percentage of motel room rates that the city recoups.

The mitigation plan also includes a provision that will solve one of the city’s persistent pet peeves.

The Embarcadero–that thin strip of asphalt that rings the bay lined with shops, restaurants, and parks–seems to separate at Beach Street. Most of the shops are located south of Beach Street. To the north are larger restaurants, such as the Harbor Hut and Great American Fish Co., and the imposing power plant.

Most tourists do not venture down that far on foot, preferring to drive there if they are going out to eat, or avoid it altogether. The city has long felt that area is under-utilized.

With the plant expansion project, Duke has promised to open up areas in front of the plant and provide bike paths to link the northern and southern sections of the Embarcadero. The walking/bike path will also continue to the ocean. Duke Energy has proposed to pave the sand road leading to Morro Creek, where it will build a bridge. This will allow access for construction vehicles from Highway 41 temporarily. After construction is completed, it will be turned into a pedestrian/bike thoroughfare.

Duke Energy has promised all of this plus a quieter, less visually imposing plant with shorter stacks, capable of producing 1200 megawatts of electricity, and Morro Bay swooned.

It will continue to be a water-cooled plant. Presently, Duke Energy is permitted to pump out 725 million gallons of water from the estuary every day. The proposed permit for the modernized plant will allow 475 million gallons a day, according to Duke Energy spokesman, Pat Mullen.

That’s 475 million gallons a day from an estuary whose life is threatened because it is filling in with sediment.

Mike Multari, director of the Morro Bay Estuary Program, says "If nothing is done, in 300 years all that will be left [in the bay] are what we call ‘the infill’ and dredged channels."

The technology that uses seawater to cool power plants was developed before health concerns about bays and oceans became acute.

Power plants such as the one in Morro Bay use steam to generate electricity and seawater to condense the steam after it’s done its work.

Simply put, water is heated to create steam, which is used to turn the blades of a turbine. Once it accomplishes its mission of turning the turbine, which in turn rotates a generator and produces electricity, the water must then be cooled in a condenser so it can be sent back to the boiler and reused. Cooling is accomplished in the condenser by using seawater, which is used to cool down the steam pipes, then returned to the source a little warmer than it was before. That’s why whenever possible power plants are located on the coast, which provides unlimited amounts of seawater for this process, which is called as "once-through cooling."

However, trends are changing.

Bill Powers of Powers Engineering, who presented the alternative proposal for CAPE, said that the CEC would "not be breaking ground" by requiring an air-cooled plant in Morro Bay since they recently did so for plants in Potrero, San Francisco, Edgar Station in Weymouth, Mass., and Athens, NY. "Morro Bay is almost a perfect site for air cooling," he says, "given its temperate climate."

Dry cooling uses fans–lots of fans that air-cool the condenser. Fans are noisy. Because electricity has to be used to power the fans, the arrangement is technically less efficient than simply using the already available seawater. Dry cooling is typically used in the desert where water cooling isn’t possible. Duke Energy recently installed a dry-cooled plant in Nevada, says Duke spokesman Pat Mullen.

Dry cooling fans and condensers also require additional buildings, usually large structures. This was bad news to Morro Bay residents who were looking forward to a quieter, less obtrusive plant.

On the day of the hearings, citizens with homemade yellow badges saying "NO dry cooling" crowded the hearing room.

The majority of speakers supported the modernization plans of the plant as proposed by Duke. These speakers included representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, the commercial fishing industry, and representatives from State Sen. Jack O’Connell’s and State Assemblyman Abel Maldonado’s offices.

"The reason dry cooling systems are usually found in the desert is because of all the huge fans and noise," one speaker suggested.

The San Luis Obispo Chumash Council hand-delivered a letter to the CEC that expressed concerns about the effects of water cooling the power plant "but we are not experts, so we are leaving this evaluation to experts." However, they were willing to express their position against dry cooling, even though they weren’t expert on that. What they are experts on is the need to preserve sacred sites or areas that may hold one, which was the reason they opposed dry cooling technology. "We stand firm on protecting our Native American sacred sites and are pleading with you to not consider requiring these proposed structures."

Duke Energy has negotiated an agreement with the Chumash Council regarding the protection of the sacred sites, but Duke spokesperson Mullen denies it was financial. "We went out of our way to work with them. We are trying to be very responsive to Native American cultural issues," he said. Duke Energy has agreed to reimburse Native American monitors at the construction site, which portends a long-term employment but, he says, "that’s pretty standard everywhere."

Other speakers defended dry cooling. "If I had to put up with a little extra noise and ugly buildings in exchange for the health of the bottom of the food chain, it’s worth it," said one.

"Show me another once-through cooling system that’s drawn from an national estuary," challenged another.

"Ultimately the CEC has the ability to override all local ordinances [and require dry cooling], but evidence is mounting against that finding," says city manager Hendrix.

But is his assurance premature? The CEC will not release their complete report until the end of April.

If it requires Duke to use dry cooling as part of its licensing specifications, the plant would no longer even have to be located on the waterfront in Morro Bay.

Many a Morro Bay tourist has stood on the scenic Embarcadero, looked out at the shimmering bay, then up at the towering stacks of the power plant and wondered, what the heck is that doing there?

But lately Morro Bay residents have been defending the plant, like family members rushing to defend a relative they privately ridicule.

One Morro Bay old-timer put down dry cooling this way: "If this gigantic, morphed hair-dryer is going to be adopted, we will be the laughingstock of the whole state."

But what if Morro Bay fails to save its estuary? That will bring not laughter, but tears. Æ

Staff writer Anne Quinn can be reached for comments or story ideas at [email protected].