EDITORIAL

The California Energy Commission is gearing up to make a decision on

whether it should streamline the year-long certification process to get

the AES Corp. power plant’s two defunct generators on line to only 60

days.

This 10-month cut in red tape is part of a series of executive orders

made earlier this month by Gov. Gray Davis. The energy commission must

decide whether the Huntington Beach power plant should be allowed to not

only start up generators No. 3 and No. 4, but start them up sooner than

originally expected. These units were shut down in 1995 by previous plant

owner Southern California Edison Co.

But what does this do for the city of Huntington Beach except put them

in a Catch-22 situation.

On one hand, Huntington Beach -- as well as other parts of the state

-- is in the midst of an energy crisis. Once AES starts up the two

generators, it would increase the plant’s electricity-generating capacity

by about 450 megawatts -- almost twice the power produced today.

Generators No. 1 and No. 2 produce about 430 megawatts together, with a

smaller unit generating about 133 megawatts of electricity.

On the other hand, the city still needs to look out for its residents

and beaches.

Just last month, a technical advisory committee theorized that the

Orange County Sanitation District’s waste water plume from an outfall

pipe may interact with an ocean water cooling system used by the AES.

This correlation may draw sewage shoreward, and therefore be one of

reasons for water contamination and beach closures.

If this is true, then doubling the power plant’s

electricity-generating capacity could only increase the amount of

bacteria found in the ocean.

AES officials are planning to drastically cut down the plant’s

emissions of nitrogen oxide, a gas pollutant produced by generating

power, using catalytic converters that serve as emission scrubbers. That

plan has also drawn concern from the city, which wants assurance that the

chemical ammonia used in the converters will be handled safely.

City officials aren’t asking for much during the state’s certification

of AES. They just want to make sure that environmental issues such as air

pollution, water quality and plant aesthetics will be addressed during

the process.

Maybe this shouldn’t take only two months to do.

In order to complete thorough investigations, the California Energy

Commission should listen to what the public has to say during its

upcoming public hearings, and take the full year to approve AES’s

retrofitting certification.

Only then can a fair and accurate decision on the affects of AES’

electricity-producing generators be known.