A meeting about a proposed power plant on the outskirts of San Diego is generating some of its own heat.
The California Energy Commission holds a public workshop on the proposed Quail Brush Generation Project today.
A group of locals has organized under the name Stop the Santee Power Plant to fight the plans. Despite the group's name, the plant would be located in San Diego.
Robin Kedward, spokesperson for group, told KPBS they're opposed to it because "it doesn't seem like it's being done right."
He said the zoning of the plant and the zoning of the land where the plant would go are "completely at odds."
San Diego was originally designed to be "a beautiful city" of villages connected by highways, he said. He said the plant would require changing the zoning from residential to industrial.
The group is also concerned about pollution and noise, he said.
People live in Santee but work in San Diego, so "Santee itself is a place where people come at night," he said.
"It'll be just like having a motorcycle running outside of your house," he said.
He added the proposed plant would be 600 yards from a high school and 200 yards from the Mission Trails Regional Park.
But Lori Ziebart, a spokesperson for the proposed project from Cogentrix Energy, told KPBS she's not sure those measurements are correct.
"But what's important to remember is that we do need grid reliability, and we do need resources for peak power," she said. "And power plants are hard to permit anywhere, but they need to go somewhere, especially with so many local facilities going offline. With respect to the zone changing in the community plan amendment, I think that's why we are applying and working through the process so that everyone will have an open opportunity to comment, to participate, and really assess the merets of moving toward with a community plan amendment."
