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Politics & Government

LADWP Finance Meeting Turns Into Debate on Coal Dependence

The open meeting at City Hall on Saturday morning is held to discuss the LADWP's finances and potential rate hikes, but residents and environmental activists are more concerned with finding ways to move the city away from coal-burning plants.

The first-ever joint meeting of the Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners and the City Council Energy and Environment Committee was supposed to focus on the LADWP's finances but that topic got sidelined when a capacity crowd of environmental activists and residents showed up at the meeting Saturday to protest the use of coal-burning power plants in Arizona and Utah.

"We made a commitment to a much more transparent process," LADWP Board President Thomas S. Sayles told the crowd that filled the City Council Chambers at Los Angeles City Hall.

However, attendees weren’t interested in discussing finances or potential rate hikes, a point made clear at a small rally organized by the Los Angeles chapter of Greenpeace that took place before the meeting. About 60 people participated in the rally outside City Hall, carrying signs that read "Dump Coal" and "End Coal."

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Inside City Hall, City Councilwoman Jan Perry, chairwoman of the Energy and Environment Committee, conducted the meeting, which began with a 30-minute presentation by LADWP General Manager Ron Nichols.

Nichols, who has been on the job since January, talked about the challenges facing the department, including the lack of sufficient incoming revenue as well as aging infrastructure, much of it at least 100 years old. He said that the department's services have become more reliable, with fewer power and water failures, but that there was much more work to be done.

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Attendees applauded when Nichols announced that the LADWP's three local gas-fired power plants that are cooled with seawater would be converted to dry-cooling systems, although he did not provide any indication of when that would happen. It was also a topic addressed later in the public comment section when several people said seawater cooling causes significant damage to marine life.

During the extended public comment period, more than 50 people took turns speaking, almost exclusively criticizing the LADWP's plan to take until 2030 to stop using power generated by the out-of-state plants. Due to the large number of people wishing to address the meeting, each speaker was given just one minute to voice his or her concerns.

Among the speakers was 10-year-0ld Dario Hererra, who received huge applause for his passionate statement on moving away from coal dependence. He came to the meeting with Chrissy Scarborough-Cutting, a lead organizer in the Sierra Club LA Beyond Coal movement, who also spoke at the meeting. 

Other speakers at Saturday's meeting suggested that the LADWP take advantage of the area's sunny climate and the many available roofs to install more solar panels. Wind power was also a popular request.

Perry ended the meeting reminding attendees that the process of reviewing the LADWP's financial future had just begun, and urging them to participate in the several neighborhood meetings the department is holding in the coming weeks.

The West Los Angeles meeting will be held June 22 at 6:30 p.m. at Stephen S. Wise Temple, 15500 Stephen S. Wise Dr., Los Angeles, 90077.

A full copy of the LADWP's presentation at Saturday's meeting, as well as an outline of the department's 2011 proposed cuts can be seen in the PDF files to the right of this article.

Mar Vista Patch editor Kelly Hartog contributed to this report.

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