Deadline looming on public comment for proposed Fort Ross Pumped Storage Project

With just over two weeks left for the public to weigh in on a large hydropower project proposed at Fort Ross State Historic Park, advocates are holding a community meeting Thursday evening to generate interest and answer what questions they can about the plan.

But chances are, most of those who attend the meeting in Jenner already are resistant to the pumped storage project, given widespread local hostility toward the proposal by Alabama-based Hydro Green Energy.

Thursday’s meeting starts at 7 p.m. at the Jenner Community Center, 10398 Highway 1.

Planned for the area of a beloved state park, on a serene stretch of scenic coastline, the project also would involve waters of the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary and important fisheries that public officials say raise enormous questions about its environmental viability.

State Senate Majority Leader Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, has called the plan “dead on arrival,” while North Coast U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, said it should be viewed as “a serious threat,” despite the hurdles the site presents and the “secretive … ham-handed” way the proposal was made public.

“They just asked a chimpanzee to throw a dart at a map,” Huffman said in an interview last month. “That’s about how much thought went into it.”

Fort Ross is one of three locations on the California Coast for which HGE has applied to federal energy regulators for a preliminary permit which would authorize it to investigate the feasibility of developing pumped storage facilities. If pursued, ocean water would be sucked into an underwater intake, piped inland underground and then pumped vertically to a large reservoir for storage.

The process then involves releasing the water back down through turbines that generate electricity during peak power consumption periods when other renewable sources, like solar or wind power, cannot meet demand.

FortRossPumpStorageApplication.PDF

Hydro Green President and CEO Wayne Krouse has said such projects would help California meet demand for utility-scale renewable energy and storage, and argued the bulk of the mechanics would be underground while the 23-acre reservoir had yet to be sited.

He also said most of the project would not be on state property, apparently because most of the mechanics are underwater or underground.

Hydro Green Energy also has filed preliminary permit applications for pumped storage facilities at Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, near Santa Barbara.

Public officials say the environmental sensitivity of the local site and the coastal waters involved mean HGE would have to surmount substantial regulatory barriers to proceed, even if the powerful Federal Energy Regulatory Commission were to view the plan favorably.

And that’s a big “if,” given the many agencies prepared to intervene in the review, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s West Coast Fisheries Service and the California State Water Resources Control Board, whose investment in ensuring compliance with the Federal Clean Water Act runs deep.

The California Coastal Commission also would have opportunities to determine if the proposal were consistent with the highly protective California Coastal Act and identify required measures in order for it to conform.

“We will be involved,” said Tom Luster, senior environmental scientist with the commission’s Energy and Ocean Resources Unit. “This definitely got our attention.”

Elected officials also have vowed to fight development of such a project on the Sonoma Coast.

“You can’t just take a bunch of cold seawater, pump it up into a brand new reservoir, where it’s going to warm and probably get algae and different critters, and then just dump it back into the in ocean, in a marine sanctuary,” Huffman said in an interview last month. “You can’t do that. It’s not going to happen.”

Sonoma County also plans to file a motion to intervene in the process, “contending that it’s not possible for the permit to be granted, due to legal impossibility,” Deputy County Counsel Verne Ball said Friday. He said he was not authorized to say more until the motion is filed.

“Hydro projects have to comply with environmental laws,” Huffman said. “They don’t get a special pass from environmental laws,” especially “when you propose one in the middle of an area that happens to be a National Marine Sanctuary, and you would have to have infrastructure that would definitely trigger a bunch of state permits and state authorities.

“I just think there are so many hurdles for this project, that the fact that there might be a FERC license somewhere in the mix, it doesn’t mean all those other hurdles magically go away.”

One Sonoma County resident who already has filed a formal comment with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission wrote this week that the proposed facility would mar an area that is “not just a geographical location to me,” but “a sanctuary.”

“It’s where memories are crafted, where the rhythm of the waves syncs with our heartbeats, and where nature displays its breathtaking beauty,” Cazadero resident Devon Meadows wrote. “ … Imagine the serene lullaby of the coast being replaced with the incessant hum of machinery.”

While most who have submitted comments so far are against the proposal, at least one person would like to see the proposal investigated.

Scott Wilson, an underground construction professional, surfer and fisherman from Westlake Village in Southern California, told federal regulators the project deserved to be considered and, if pursued further, subject to conditions that would protect the environment and surrounding area.

“Clean energy does not have one solution, but will require an ‘all of the above’ approach to generation and storage,” Wilson wrote. “Pumped storage is a proven, established technology that should be part of the transition to carbon-free clean energy.”

Presenters at Thursday’s meeting will include Maria Brown, superintendent of the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary; west Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins; Richard Charter, director of the coastal coordination program for The Ocean Foundation; and retired U.S. Rep. Lynn Woolsey, who long championed coastal protections, including the 2015 expansions of the Greater Farallones and the Cordell Banks national marine sanctuaries.

The meeting is hosted by the Friends of the Jenner Creek Committee.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan (she/her) at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.