Write Letters & Emails
This page is being updated frequently with the various email and mailing addresses that we need to write to. Please add your information here for others to share.
The following are the individuals and agencies that need to hear from each of us asap. Keep your letters succinct and try to include how this powerline personally impacts you. Some of the contacts have specific points to emphasize, although we encourage you to first speak from your heart.
US Forest Service
http://www.fs.fed.us/contactus/
For postal mail, send to:
USDA Forest Service
Attn: Office of Communication
Mailstop: 1111
1400 Independence Ave., SW
Washington, D.C. 20250-1111
Cleveland National Forest
Forest Supervior Will Metz, Cleveland National Forest – Please tell Will Metz that the Southern route did not have a complete EIR or EIS, and ask him to complete these studies, including public participation hearings, before considering approval of the line through USFS.
East County Magazine has a great web page with links to your elected officials… click here
Please cc:
County Supervisor Dianne Jacob Email: dianne.jacob@ sdcounty.ca.gov - Jacob is already a supporter for San Diego. Please email her so she knows that we are active and vocal.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Email - Please tell Schwarzenegger that the budget does not include additional funding to fight the predictable increase in catastophic fires that the EIR states will occur with approval of this line. Please ask him to read the EIR, and alert him to the fact that this line will not even carry renewable energy (that SDG&E refused to agree to any renewable mandate). Please remind him that SDG&E was fined for misleading the CPUC, and that we now believe they are misleading him at the cost to California in the form of renewable firestorms, and that we encourage him to take the time to read the EIR.
Congressman Duncan Hunter Email - Duncan Hunter’s family lost their home in the Cedar Fire and he is concerned that the Powerline will significantly increase firestorms. Remind him that the Powerlink will also increase our dependence on foreign imports of liquid natural gas (LPN) as Sempra has signed contracts to bring in imports from Russia and Indonesia to their newly built Baja plants. Ask him to support re-opening the EIR and EIS for the Southern route. Please remind him that SDG&E was fined for misleading the CPUC, and that we now believe they are misleading San Diego.
CA Senator Dennis Hollingsworth Email
CA Senator Dianne Feinstein Email
Senator Barbara Boxer
CA Assemblyman Joel Anderson
Billie Blanchard, CPUC Project Manager – bcb@cpuc.ca.gov
Michael R. Peevey – CPUC
Secretary of Agriculture – Tom Vilsack
Laura Cyphert – ECCAC info@eastcountyaction.org
http://www.eastcountymagazine.org/?q=0809soundoff
I heard Laura Cyphert, Laura MacDonald (SDG&E) and Andy Horne (representing Imperial County, albeit not very well) on KPBS this morning, May 5, 2010.
I was disturbed as several subjects were not really addressed.
1. SDG&E put a ten foot pipeline through San Diego County in 1992 to fire their plants in Mexico. They put these plants there to circumvent environmental laws of the state as well as our country ! It just didn’t “pop up” a few years ago.
2. That “northern route” was SDG&E’s best bet to supply Riverside County. It may have provided some electricity to San Diego but ultimately, it was bound for Riverside ! One might forget that area was on a building boom at that time.
3. SDG&E’s claim they are going to add wind and solar power to the grid is disingenuous at best. The line loss for this project is going to be huge ! Line loss is amount of electricity lost due to the electrical resistance of the cable. Resistance increases with distance and ambient heat.
Can you imagine what the ambient heat loss of this cable would be considering a lot of this is built over a reflective desert floor ?
4. Fire potential. You can not get around this danger. Steel towers and good maintenance will mitigate this potential.
So let’s let the experts in outside plant management like SDG&E handle it right ?
THEY ADMITTED THEY WERE NEGLIGENT IN THE MAINTENANCE AND STARTED 160 FIRES FROM 1998 TO 2008.
Penal Code 450 – 457 calls that a felony – 160 felonies where people died and were injured and property was lost that ‘enhance’ these crimes.
The San Diego District Attorney is somehow absent !
Last, but not least, San Diego County residents are going to pay for this and ultimately, there is going to be a cable connecting Mexico and Riverside County and SDG&E will be making “bucket loads” of money.
Thanks Bob for your post! Great points, and you are absolutely right. It is amazing they are not in jail! Its time for someone to take a real stand.