California Legislature—2013–14 Regular Session

Assembly Bill No. 248

Introduced by Assembly Member Gorell

February 6, 2013

An act relating to energy.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

AB 248, as introduced, Gorell. Energy: powerplants: Ventura County.

Under existing law, the State Water Resources Control Board and the 9 California regional water quality control boards regulate water quality in accordance with the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act (act) and the federal Clean Water Act. Under the act, the state board is required to adopt specified state policies with respect to water quality as it relates to the coastal marine environment, including a policy requiring new or expanded coastal powerplants and other industrial installations using seawater for cooling, heating, or industrial processing to use the best available site, design, technology, and mitigation measures feasible to minimize the intake and mortality of all forms of marine life.

This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact subsequent legislation that would require the Public Utilities Commission and the Independent System Operator, in consultation with specified entities, to submit to the Legislature, before January 1, 2015, a report on policies, recommended legislative actions, and incentives necessary to accomplish specified objectives related to once-through cooling powerplants in Ventura County while preserving and enhancing electric system reliability in the Counties of Santa Barbara and Ventura.

Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no. State-mandated local program: no.

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.  

(a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the
following:

(1) Ventura County possesses unique environmental resources
including miles of coast lines, working agricultural lands, valleys,
coastal mountains and the distant Channel Islands. These resources
create six distinct microclimates and provide unique habitat, flora,
fauna, and marine resources for the various species that share the
county. Additionally, they provide a wide variety of recreational
opportunities and the base for a superior quality of life in the
communities beyond Ventura County.

(2) California should promote public policies that create jobs
and foster economic growth while maintaining quality of life.
Ventura County needs policies that preserve its global
competitiveness and allows business to grow, invest, and create
jobs. These policies should encourage innovation while promoting
economic prosperity. Ventura County has a unique blend of
industries to protect and promote. The employment base is secured
by agriculture, tourism, international trade, and manufacturing
industries, with growth occurring in the high-tech, medical, science,
and service sectors. All of these industries need affordable, reliable
electricity to prosper.

(3) In 2010, the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB)
adopted its Statewide Water Quality Control Policy on the Use of
Coastal and Estuaries Waters for Power Plant Cooling, commonly
referred to as the “Once-Through Cooling Policy.” Two generation
facilities in Ventura County are subject to the Once-Through
Cooling Policy.

(4) To comply with the Once-Through Cooling Policy, an owner
or operator of an existing powerplant must reduce intake flowrate
at each unit, at a minimum, to a level commensurate with that
which can be attained by a closed-cycle wet cooling system, by
facility-specific deadlines prescribed in the policy. Alternatively,
if an owner or operator demonstrates that compliance with this
standard is not feasible, that owner or operator must reduce
impingement mortality and entrainment of marine life for the
facility to a comparable level to that which would be achieved
under the first standard, using operational or structural controls,
or both.

(5) Pursuant to the Once-Through Cooling Policy, the SWRCB
impaneled a Statewide Advisory Committee on Cooling Water
Intake Structures (SACCWIS), including representatives from the
Public Utilities Commission, the State Energy Resources
Conservation and Development Commission, the Independent
System Operator, the California Coastal Commission, the State
Lands Commission, the State Air Resources Board, and SWRCB
staff, to advise the SWRCB on the implementation of the policy
to ensure that the implementation schedule takes into account local
area and grid reliability.

(6) Electricity reliability is critical to California’s economy,
security, and stability of modern life. It is the top priority for
California’s electrical energy policy to preserve electric reliability
and maintain regional system integrity. Ventura County and Santa
Barbara County rely on transmission imports across a narrow
corridor that is at risk of outages caused by natural disasters,
including earthquakes and fires. During these events, electric
reliability in this area depends on service from existing flexible
generation units that are subject to the Once-Through Cooling
Policy. Generation and transmission operation in California must
be monitored and controlled in real time to ensure a consistent and
ample flow of electricity. It is designed with system redundancies
to prevent outages during emergencies, such as fires, grid failure,
or maintenance.

(b) It is intent of the Legislature to enact subsequent legislation
that would require the Public Utilities Commission and the
Independent System Operator, in consultation with the SWRCB,
the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development
Commission, the California Coastal Commission, the State Lands
Commission, the State Air Resources Board, and other relevant
local and federal authorities, to submit a report, before January 1,
2014, to the Legislature on a study and evaluation of what policies,
legislative actions, and other federal, state, and local incentives
are necessary to accomplish, while preserving and enhancing
electric system reliability in the Counties of Santa Barbara and
Ventura, all of the following objectives:

(1) To ensure the preservation of Ventura County’s
environmental resources, tourism, and economic development by
decommissioning the existing once-through cooling powerplants
or by facilitating the replacement of existing once-through cooling
powerplants in Ventura County with more modern powerplant
while reducing visual impacts and ensuring that sufficient reserve
capacity is available in the local capacity reliability area.

(2) To review the potential of acquisition of the properties on
which the once-through cooling powerplants are located by the
City of Oxnard, the County of Ventura, the state, or other
responsible entities for the preservation as a natural resources in
the California coastal zone.

(3) To uphold contractual obligations and economic interests
of the current owners and operators of the once-through cooling
powerplants in the Big Creek/Ventura local capacity reliability
area.

(4) To modify the cooling technologies at the once-through
cooling powerplants in Ventura County to mitigate impacts on
marine environment, consistent with the Once-Through Cooling
Policy and other existing policies.

(5) To identify potential sites in Ventura County appropriate
for once-through cooling powerplants that would not impose
greater environmental, agricultural, or economic impacts, or greater
costs to the electricity ratepayer, as compared to the redevelopment
or replacement of the existing powerplants.