Environmental activist Angelo Logan once viewed former state Sen. Martha Escutia as a champion on health issues, someone who sought to reduce the amount of air pollution produced by the trains that roll past the low-income communities southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
But these days, Logan and Escutia are on opposite sides of a clean-air fight, taking part in a furious last-minute lobbying blitz over a $450-million power plant proposed by the tiny industrial city of Vernon.
Escutia, a Los Angeles attorney, and two other former elected officials who have represented communities near Vernon -- former Assemblyman Tom Calderon of Montebello and former Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre -- have been at the center of the power plant campaign, lobbying elected officials in favor of rules that would spur construction of the 914-megawatt facility.
That political firepower indicates just how high the stakes are, not just for Vernon but also for a handful of other power plants in the planning stages across the region. That clout has discouraged the environmental groups who are waging their own fight against the plant.
If they "pick up a phone and they make a call, they can get a lunch with just about anyone. That power doesn't fade away," said Logan, executive director of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District is scheduled to decide today how much Vernon would have to pay to open its proposed 13.7-acre plant, which could begin operating at the corner of Boyle and Fruitland avenues by the summer of 2009.
Although the Vernon plant still faces an extensive review by the California Energy Commission, the AQMD vote is considered pivotal because it would create a new, highly technical set of rules governing the construction of new power generating facilities. The AQMD board is weighing whether to charge more to power plants that seek to operate in low-income neighborhoods already beset by environmental problems.
One proposal before the agency would require Vernon to pay nearly $50 million in "mitigation fees," including roughly $50,000 for each pound of PM10 -- tiny particulate matter viewed as a cause of premature deaths -- that would be generated by the plant on a daily basis.
An alternative proposal would push the cost as high as $89.2 million. And a third would require power plants to have cleaner technology when they are built in "environmental justice zones" -- including Vernon.
