State public utilities officials have approved a plan to build a natural gas powered "peaker" plant in Otay Mesa, despite the protests of San Diego residents.
Local activists traveled to the California Public Utilities Commission's Wednesday meeting in San Francisco to rally against the controversial Pio Pico power plant. But commissioners gave the proposed plant their unanimous approval.
Kayla Race works for the San Diego-based Environmental Health Coalition. She said commissioners have locked that region into an expensive, dirty future.
"This was bad planning. It was a decision that was rushed through at the expense of a community that's really already overburdened with air pollution. And already overburdened with existed dirty energy infrastructure," Race said.
In March last year, the CPUC rejected the plan, saying the power would not be necessary in the immediate future. But the commissioners took the issue up again after a judge granted preliminary approval in January to amended plans. The amended plans came following the closure of San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station last June.
