Espanola Jackson has lived in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood since 1948 and seen both the growth and the decline of what has become San Francisco’s most endangered community. An activist and community organizer for over 60 years, Ms. Jackson proudly witnessed the shutting down in 2006 of the Hunters Point Power Plant, which had been a major source of environmental pollution in the low-income southeast section of San Francisco. Just over a year later, however, Ms. Jackson was at the center of a movement to stop four brand new fossil fuel-burning power plants from being set up in her community.
“We don’t need them in Bayview-Hunters Point”[1] — Espanola Jackson, July 2007
On
July 24, 2007 the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC)
voted 3-1 to enter into negotiations for a $273 million contract to
build four new natural gas-fired power plants to replace Mirant
Corporation’s Potrero Power Plant, just a stone’s throw north of the
Hunters Point Power Plant.
The California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), a
quasi-regulatory body charged with maintaining reliability of the
state’s electrical grid, had opined that the 362-megawatt gas-burning
Potrero Plant could not shut down unless San Francisco built 200
megawatts of new gas power plants to replace it.
Potrero Hill and Bayview-Hunters Point had for decades been locked in a
sort of power plant symbiosis, with each neighborhood’s plant dumping
pollution on both areas. Now, three of the proposed four power plants
were to be nestled between the two communities.
An unexpected nuance at the July 24 power plant debate was SFPUC member
Adam Werbach’s lone dissenting vote on the basis of his opinion that
the city was swapping “one dirty fossil fuel” power plant for another.
“A green wave has lifted our expectations”[2] —Van Jones, October 2007
The Potrero Plant operates in anticipation of that rare instance when
not one, but two power lines may go out on an extremely hot day.
Pursuant to Cal-ISO’s 2004 Action Plan, policymakers understood that
some degree of conventional power plant generation was required to
prepare for this contingency.
Ms. Jackson, on the other hand, asserted that one day, “many years
ago,” a representative of the Cal-ISO had told her that if San
Francisco ever built a new power line into the city, the Potrero Plant
could shut down without replacement. When a new power line into San
Francisco was indeed proposed, environmental organizations like the
Sierra Club and the Green Party, community groups like Greenaction and
the A. Philip Randolph Institute, and civil rights advocates Brightline
Defense Project soon joined Ms. Jackson in her campaign for “no new
power plants.”
As Sierra Club Political Director John Rizzo put it: “…global warming cannot wait, the Bayview and Potrero cannot wait.”
But despite protests from the community and objections from two SFPUC
Commissioners, a power plant contract was approved on October 31, 2007.
“Not convinced the city has done its due diligence”[3] —Ross Mirkarimi, May 2008
In early 2008, Jackson and her growing circle of advocates turned their
campaign’s focus on finding San Francisco Supervisors who would vote
against the contract. Sophie Maxwell,whose district includes Potrero
Hill and Bayview-Hunter’s Point, had come to accept that a power
plant-free solution would not be forthcoming.
Supervisors Michela Alioto-Pier, Ross Mirkarimi, Chris Daly, and Tom
Ammiano—though not typically united on policy issues—found common
ground on the subject of power plants and their impact on vulnerable
communities and the environment.
In April 2008, Alioto-Pier introduced legislation calling for a study
of power plant alternatives after San Francisco Planning and Urban
Research published a memorandum which laid out a litany of changes that
had occurred since the ISO’s 2004 Action Plan. Most importantly, in
2007 San Francisco had approved a new underwater power line, the Trans
Bay Cable, to bring 400 megawatts of electricity from the East Bay city
of Pittsburg, starting in early 2010.
On May 5, Mirkarimi spoke at a City Hall rally alongside Ms. Jackson
and over 100 environmentalists and activists. Daly, who also recalled
the statement from Cal-ISO about a new power line making the Potrero
plant redundant, pledged to forever vote “no” on new power plants.
In the course of a grueling 10-hour hearing that followed the rally,
Mirkarimi and Alioto-Pier uncovered that Cal-ISO’s 2004 assumptions had
not been revisited for nearly four years, that the city had never
formally requested that the Trans Bay Cable be factored into the city’s
power needs, and that the only person in San Francisco procedurally
able to put these questions to the Cal-ISO was Mayor Gavin Newsom.
“I don’t want to live to regret this decision.”[4] —Gavin Newsom, May 2008
Ms. Jackson’s firm recollection that a single power line, such as the
proposed Trans Bay Cable, would change the whole power plant debate had
now been embraced by a wide range of groups. San Francisco policymakers
were asked to justify why one of the city’s primary environmental
justice objectives—the shutting down of the Potrero Power Plant—could
only be achieved by building new power plants that would burn fossil
fuels for at least 2,000 hours per year for the next 30 years.
At a May 22 meeting with environmental and community activists, Mayor
Newsom pledged to request an update to the 2004 Cal-ISO Action Plan—one
that would evaluate the impact of the Trans Bay Cable project. On June
2, Cal-ISO Chief Executive Officer Yakout Mansour wrote to Newsom that
the Trans Bay Cable did indeed reduce the need for in-city electrical
generation from 200 megawatts to 150 megawatts.
Cal-ISO indicated that at a minimum, most of the Potrero Plant could
start shutting down upon completion of the Trans Bay Cable in the
spring of 2010, without new power plants having to replace it.
Advocates were free to focus on closing the rest of Potrero and
increasing the Trans Bay Cable’s draw from the Rio Vista Wind Farm and
other renewable resources in the East Bay. On July 22, the SFPUC led by
Commissioners Richard Sklar, David Hochschild, and Dennis Normandy,
voted to rescind and tear up the $273 million power plant contract it
had approved in 2007.
“If there’s anything Cal-ISO responds to, it’s community pressure.”[5] —Eric Brooks, September 2009
The question remained of how to close the 150-megawatt “gap” and some
decision-makers were willing to compromise by building fewer power
plants or using different locations. Mayor Newsom, however,
categorically stated that he would “…veto any legislation to build new
power plants.”
One of the chief lessons of the San Francisco power plant experience is
that underlying data assumptions should be constantly revisited. Fossil
fuel power plants have historically taken the path of least
resistance—situating in and around low-income communities of color
least able to resist politically. As San Francisco Green Party’s Eric
Brooks and longtime power plant opponent Marie Harrison have noted,
community pressure against Cal-ISO and requests from city officials
have kept ISO regulators constantly monitoring San Francisco’s power
plant needs. By May 2009, Cal-ISO found that San Francisco will
actually need just a scant 25 megawatts of generation when the Trans
Bay Cable comes online, and in August, City Attorney Dennis Herrera
announced an agreement to shut the entire power plant by the end of
2010.
Appropriately enough, at the September 11, 2009 Cal-ISO meeting where
the framework for closing the Potrero Plant (beginning spring 2010) was
laid out, Director of Regional Transmission Gary DeShazo began his
presentation by saying that Espanola Jackson had called him the night
before to make sure that he told just the facts when he spoke about the
power plant.
Endnotes
1. Jackson, Espanola. Public Testimony before San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, July 24, 2007.
2. Arce, Joshua and Jones, Van. “On San Francisco’s Energy Future,” San Francisco Chronicle Op-Ed, October 23, 2007.
3. Mirkarimi, Ross. “Peaker Plan Moving Forward,” San Francisco Bay Guardian Politics Blog, May 6, 2008.
4. Newsom, Mayor Gavin, “Decision on Potrero power plant delayed,” San Francisco Examiner, May 13, 2008.
5. Brooks, Eric, September 14, 2009. Interview
Joshua Arce is the executive director of Brightline Defense Project in San Francisco, California.
Climate Change: Catalyst or Catastrophe? | Vol. 16, No. 2 | Fall 2009 | Credits