Guest column: SoCalGas is asking for a ratepayer advance. Don’t give it to them
After waves of public outcry last year, SoCalGas was told by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to halt the expansion of its natural gas compressor station across the street from E.P. Foster Elementary in West Ventura — at least until it could study alternative sites for the compressor and engage with the community. But in June, SoCalGas announced that not only would it proceed with the project in the exact same spot, it would cost $200 million more than originally proposed and that cost would be passed on to ratepayers.
The costs proposed by SoCalGas and the alternatives analysis they produced have not been independently reviewed by any agency or regulator to date. Yet, SoCalGas has already started purchasing equipment they expect ratepayers to finance. SoCalGas is asking for a blank check and a blind eye, but we shouldn’t give them either.
That’s why the Westside Clean Air Coalition and many concerned residents of West Ventura are asking our city council to become a formal party in the General Rate Case proceedings that will determine what SoCalGas can charge customers and how that money will be used. By removing the gas compressor expansion project from the General Rate Case, our city council can help cut off the financial spigot for SoCalGas and hold the utility to fulfill its promises to the CPUC.
Despite SoCalGas’ assurances to the CPUC that it would engage stakeholders and community members, the utility has never responded to repeated community requests for an independent Environmental Impact Report (EIR). Protests, letters and even resolutions passed by the Ventura County Board of Supervisors and Ventura City Council all went unacknowledged. To add insult to injury, they even locked out dozens of community members from their “town halls” and held them far from the Westside in inaccessible luxury hotels. This is not the “community engagement” SoCalGas promised to deliver. It’s a public relations scam.
The compressor station is right across the street from a local elementary school, and frequent methane leaks have prompted parents as well as the School Board to join calls for its removal away from a site so close to children whose developing lungs and brains are extremely vulnerable to pollution. Gas compressors are prone to explosions, which is why they’re usually far away from population centers. Since 2011, fourteen such stations have experienced explosions, sending toxic chemicals like lead and methane into the air. But SoCalGas announced with no further explanation that “after reviewing 17 alternatives” it would not move the compressor station at all.
We simply can’t give SoCalGas any more blank checks to pad their bottom line at the expense of our community’s health and transition to clean energy. SoCalGas has claimed to value community input, yet they have tossed aside our concerns and turned away from our voices. Now they want permission to over charge us for a project that we don’t want and don’t need.
The CPUC has already fined SoCalGas close to $10 million for illegally using customer funds to lobby against clean energy solutions to the climate crisis. And in the first quarter of this year, the lobbying expenditures of Sempra, the utility’s parent company, have exponentially grown. But the Westside of Ventura is done being the sacrifice zone for SoCalGas and the fossil fuel industry.
We will not stand by while our regulatory processes are being abused and our children's health is sacrificed for a billion-dollar corporation's bottom line. We call on the Ventura City Council to stand up, join our fight, and make sure SoCalGas cannot charge us for work on the compressor station expansion or begin work on this project when it hasn’t been properly approved by the community.
Tomás Rebecchi is the Central Coast Organizing Manager for the national non-profit Food & Water Watch. He lives with his family and two young children on Ventura's Westside.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: SoCalGas is asking for a ratepayer advance. Don’t give it to them
