by Garth Meyer
On New Year’s Eve, the Redondo Beach waterfront will cease to have an electrical power plant for the first time since before most South Bay residents were born.
The California Water Resources Control Board voted in August not to extend use of the plant, which was built in 1954.
A commemoration of the closing is planned for 2 p.m. Dec. 31, under the gateway Redondo Beach/King Harbor sign, at the three-way intersection of Herondo Street, Catalina Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway. Special guests include State Senator Ben Allen and Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi.
“No question, the closing of the Redondo Beach power plant is an historic event,” Mayor Bill Brand said this week. “As far as the future of this site, Redondo Beach has a certified housing element by the State, and this 50-acre site is not part of it. And who actually now owns the power plant site is in litigation, so we will have no comment [on the site’s future].”
Brand frequently reminds people the land is zoned for open space, and that city zoning can only be changed by a vote of the residents. He has also secured grants for development of the property as a park. Muratsuchi presented a check for $5 million to the city council this fall.
Southern California Edison will now make preparations to take down the power lines that run from the plant up 190th Street to Torrance.
Brand credited the plant’s closing to citizen activism. While closing the Redondo Beach operation, the water board voted to give three-year extensions to similar generating stations at Alamitos, Huntington Beach and Ormond Beach because of board concerns about system-wide energy grid backup.
California’s policy on the use of coastal waters for power-plant cooling, adopted in 2010, affected 19 power plants that used the ocean water for cooling. The water withdrawals have been found to damage marine life. Fish and mammals get trapped against intake screens and eggs and larvae are killed when drawn into the plants’ cooling systems.
The California Coastal Commission has stated that at least six acres of the Redondo property must be preserved as wetlands.
The site is now the subject of lawsuits filed by its owner group against the city over the owners’ plans for a housing and commercial development.
The owners filed for bankruptcy in February, in a dispute over payments to AES. ER
