While we traditionally keep our Christmas tree around until well into the middle of January, those who like to start the new year fresh can dump off their used tannenbaums at any one of these locations according to the Sign On San Diego:
According to a Barbara Henry story in the North County Times “staff members with the state Energy Commission” are holding two workshops to go over their report on NRG Energy Inc.’s plans to put in another power plant in our lagoon.
The first workshop session is set for 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Jan. 7. The second is set for 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Jan. 8. Both will be at the recently opened Sheraton Carlsbad, 5480 Grand Pacific Drive. . . . The Jan. 7 session covers air, water and soil issues among other topics. The Jan. 8 session includes visual issues and traffic concerns, Della said. . . .Officials with the city of Carlsbad, which has opposed the plans, are encouraging people to come between 6 and 7 p.m. Jan. 7 to talk about air quality and visual blight issues, said Joe Garuba, a city employee who is coordinating the city’s response to the project.
We can’t think of anything more boring, but NRG really shouldn’t be able to turn our lagoon into an industrial wasteland without someone at least complaining a little (even if it doesn’t do any good). So please, someone, go complain.
If a new power plant moves in next door to the surfside smokestack and towering concrete walls of Carlsbad’s Encina Power Station, the city’s prime coastal property will become the poster child for both poor planning and fossil fuel addiction.
Mayor Bud Lewis and his City Council are trying to persuade the California Energy Commission to require the new plant’s site to be moved away from the coast. They want the property to be redeveloped to increase beach and lagoon access. The power plant’s owner, NRG West, says other locations are not feasible because of adverse environmental impacts and technical problems that would diminish the plant’s electrical transmission capacity.
The California Energy Commission will settle the argument with a final decision planned for March.
All three players in this drama appear to agree on two major points: our growing regional population needs a new, fossil-fueled power plant, and the old one cannot be shut down for another seven to 15 years.
Carlsbadistan’sDee Forsberg (along with other members of the Surfrider Founation) kicked off a month long project yesterday that will see 50 giant stainless steel ashtrays installed at beaches in North County, according to a story in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Forsberg hopes for immediate results from the new ashcans. “My goal is to raise awareness. It’s really to get people to stop and think,” she said. . . One day this past summer, she filled a kitchen garbage sack with discarded cigarette butts at Tamarack and tied another one to a nearby post. “I thought maybe whoever is sitting here and smoking will start to use the trash bag,” she said.
That’s great because we’re sick of looking at butts all over the beach. Wait, rewind that. We’re sick of looking at cigarette butts all over the beach.
Carlsbadistan’s fuel efficient car company Aptera is one of 22 automaker teams who have registered for the Progressive Automotive X Prize, according to a story on Xconomy San Diego.
. . .the teams wlll compete in two dramatic, long-distance stage races scheduled for next year, X Prize spokeswoman Carrie Fox said. The $10 million purse is split between the alternative class and a mainstream class that requires entrants to operate cars with four-doors, 4-wheels and other basic features.”
Not a bad way to add $5 million to the bottom line while getting a little press along the way.
We’ve always seen it as a big hole in the ground off the side of the 78. But to some who took a tour of the quarry on Saturday November 8, 2008, there’s more than meets the eye, according to a story in the North County Times.
“This creek is just amazing,” Michael Taliana said, looking down at Buena Vista Creek, as it gurgled over granite rocks just west of El Salto Falls. “If they clean this up, this could be a beautiful place for families. This could be a beautiful place to make a park.”
Officials from Hanson Aggregates (like Ann Gunter, pictured) showed how much work the company has already done to save the area and explained what the options are moving forward. For the rest of the story (and there is much more to this than a park, a creek, and a quarry), click the link below.
On the heels of all the talk of “the quarry” being a good site for the new NRG Power Plant comes news that The Hanson/Heidelberg Cement Group is hosting a “reclamation plan workshop” on the site of their old quarry on Saturday, November 8, from 10:30 AM to 2:00 PM.
The west end of this valley was acquired earlier this year for permanent, natural open space. The east end is home of one of the highest water falls, closest to the coast, in all of southern California. The City of Oceanside allowed the Quarry Creek shopping center to lay asphalt to within a few feet of the water falls and install a very large WalMart/Kohls sign above it. . . The area in question is in Carlsbad. The same developer wants to develop it. Many people want to acquire it as additional open space, “water falls to the waves” concept. This the stream that feeds the Buena Vista lagoon, the only fresh water lagoon in southern California.
The old quarry is located in the southwest corner of Highway 78 and College Blvd. Travel west on Haymar from College Blvd. past the auto dealer. Turn south at the Hanson sign. Follow directions to parking and workshop.
It was standing room only at the City of Carlsbad sponsored open house and presentation regarding NRG’s proposed power plant, according to a Michael Burge story in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Joe Garuba, the city’s municipal projects manager, told the audience that NRG’s new plant would not depend on ocean water to cool its generators, as the old one does. . . .“Because this plant is air-cooled, you can move it away from the coast,” Garuba said.
Of course, then it would be in someone else’s backyard. Our question (which we didn’t ask because NRG was not allowed to attend the meeting) is why does this power plant need to be in Carlsbad at all?
On Thursday November 6, 2008 the City of Carlsbad is hosting an open house and presentation regarding the proposed power plant that NRG wants to put in on the shores of the Aqua Hedionda lagoon.
Since decisions made about this important coastal property will affect Carlsbad for the next 50-plus years, the City of Carlsbad want to ensure its citizen have ample opportunities to provide input to the California Energy Commission.
That’s why we’re encouraging everyone to attend the meeting at 5:30 PM Thursday, November 6, in the Faraday Center, 1635 Faraday Ave. We’ve found that these forums can often be enjoyed (worst case) as the theatre of the absurd. So join, us. Please.
A semi truck hauling shop towels caught fire on Interstate 5 just north of La Costa Avenue in Carlsbadistan on Tuesday morning at 4:30 AM causing traffic to back up for miles.
The incident was further complicated when the big rig began to spill fluid, which officials feared would leak into a nearby lagoon. A hazardous-materials team was sent out, as were officials from the Department of Environmental Quality. Sixty gallons of diesel fuel spilled, some of it possibly making its way into Bataquitos Lagoon.
If you have a Carlsbad news story, press release, event, rumor, or scandal that we'd be interested in (and there are a lot of them), please click the link to send them to The Editors.
Or just search the site to see if we've mentioned it before, right here.
RSS Feed-Posts