SDG&E wants to put a powerline through Anza-Borrego State Park. Opposition is mounting.

San Diego Gas and Electric’s plan to build a high voltage power line across San Diego County through sensitive habitats in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park has ignited a backlash among park advocates, residents and politicians across the region.

The county Board of Supervisors will discuss the project at a meeting Tuesday. Supervisor Jim Desmond opposes the Golden Pacific Powerlink, which would run about 150 miles and be one of SDG&E’s largest-ever projects.

“The route runs straight through our backcountry. And the communities that take the hit get no vote on the decision,” Desmond posted on social media. 

“That is not how this should work. I am going to fight it.”

Anza-Borrego State Park, the largest in California, spans almost 650,000 acres from the border with Mexico to Riverside County. It’s also one of the most ecologically and geologically diverse parts of the state, home to hundreds of native plant species and numerous endangered animals like bighorn sheep and desert tortoises.

The vital tourist attraction draws as many as million visitors a year to desert communities because of its unique landscapes and famed wildflower superblooms as well for its designation as a “dark sky park” coveted by stargazers.

“This land needs to remain wild,” said Jaime Purinton, Anza- Borrego Foundation’s communications director, adding that the park needs to be viewed as an asset toward California’s climate goals. The group, which partners with the park to raise funds for conservation, has been outspoken in its opposition to the project.

The project would cut connect an existing substation in Imperial County with a new substation near the decommissioned San Onofre nuclear plant on the San Diego-Orange County border using a 500-kilovolt powerline.

Erica Martin, SDG&E’s director of project management, said that the line would help transmit energy from green sources such as solar and geothermal, which are increasingly being built in California’s deserts. It would help the state reach its goals to achieve 100% clean energy by 2045, she said.

“That’s where we have a diversity of resources,” Martin said. “And we need a way to bring them from where they’re generated into the population and load centers in California.”

On Tuesday, residents from across the county and beyond filled chamber halls and two overflow rooms, calling on the Board of Supervisors to help block the project. They hailed from Temecula, Palomar Mountain, Borrego Springs and Warner Springs and included residents from urban areas who frequent the county’s backcountry.

Representatives from SDG&E also attended the meeting as did a handful of supporters from organizations including the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown San Diego Partnership, the San Diego Building and Construction Trades Council and the IBEW Local 47.

A divisive project

The San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce has endorsed the project, calling the electric grid “the backbone of our $300 billion regional economy and California’s long-term energy future.”

But Temecula city council members are calling it a threat to their economy. A statement on the city’s website says it will “mobilize all evidence and every legal argument and legal remedy available to defend our community from this dangerous and economically devastating project.”

Residents have formed a group called Save Temecula to fight it, and residents in Warner Springs have also begun to campaign against the power line.

SDG&E customers would shoulder around 9% of the bill for the $1.62 billion project.

Among the many arguments critics say is that long power lines are inefficient — the longer they are, the more energy they lose along the way. They say SDG&E should focus on efficiencies by increasing urban rooftop solar programs, for example, instead of disturbing protected lands.

“This is not green energy,” said Mark Jorgensen, a former superintendent of the Anza-Borrego park. “It’s red because the land is bleeding.”

The company’s preferred route for what it refers to as a “freeway” for power would bring up to 200-foot metal towers through the park, replacing a 69-kilovolt line on 50-foot wooden poles. That line was built before the park was established in 1933, and well before the California Environmental Quality Act was introduced in 1970.

A section of the existing line is flanked by a narrow corridor beyond which the land is designated as wilderness. SDG&E maintains it will not build past that buffer zone.

But critics say the promise is unrealistic given the scale of the project. 

Jorgensen, who was part of the team that filed for the wilderness designation, said that this proposal is what he worked his whole career to prevent.

“You’re not coming through this park,” he said.

‘This is like deja vu’

It’s not the first time that SDG&E has tried to build a power line along this route.

In 2008, the California Public Utilities Commission rejected the use of the corridor for the 117-mile Sunrise Powerlink after public outcry.

The commission called the route “environmentally unacceptable and infeasible.”

Kathy Dice, another former superintendent of the park, said she is feeling deja vu. Among her many concerns is that the corridor contains Native American cultural sites including sites with artifacts dating back 5,000 years.

“It really, really is opening Pandora’s box in terms of more development,” Dice said.

Mark Macarro, tribal chairman of the Pechanga Band of Indians, said he strongly opposes the project for its impacts on ancestral cultural resources as well as on the non-tribal community.

The route would interrupt bighorn sheep breeding grounds and also diminish the habitats of mountain lions and animals that dwell in the corridor, such as desert tortoises, lizards and snakes.

“They essentially disappear from the habitat,” said Kirsten Dutcher, the desert reserves director at UC Irvine and a desert tortoise specialist. “There are a lot of species that are really sensitive to that level of development.”

Dutcher said the large powerlines have also drawn more crows and ravens to nest in them, posing predatory problems for some species. Grapevine Canyon, much of which is designated wilderness, contains a type of desert soil that contains living organisms on its surface and can take hundreds of years to regenerate if disturbed.

The project would be required to undergo the state’s environmental review process. SDG&E officials have pointed to a determination by the California Independent System Operator, the entity managing much of the electric grid across the state, that found the new line was needed.

They also said they’ve engaged stakeholders such as the Anza Borrego Foundation and other groups early on in the process in order to inform them about the plans and listen to their concerns.

But Purinton said the foundation is not working with SDG&E, and criticized the company for not being transparent enough about their plans.

Purinton says she is bewildered by the proposal, particularly because the state already struck down building a line on the current “preferred” route years ago.

“We don’t understand why they would spend millions of dollars on planning and doing these studies,” she said.

“It doesn’t add up.”

Updated Tuesday, Aug. 16, 6:30 p.m.: This story changed to mention what happened at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting.