Scores of residents will head down to Burlingame City Hall Monday to convince the City Council to enact a new ordinance that would prohibit new power lines from being placed within 150 feet of schools, homes or businesses.
The idea is to prevent Pacific Gas and Electric and the California Public Utilities Commission from placing a 230 kilovolt underground power line down Trousdale Boulevard. However, if the City Council enacts such an ordinance, it will open the city up to legal action from either the CPUC or PG&E - or both, said PG&E spokesman Paul Moreno.
Moreno said it's a tactic that has been tried time and again throughout California - without little success. He equates the proposal to enacting an ordinance banning Caltrans from constructing Interstate 280 through the city.
"There have been communities that have tried to supersede state authority, but decades of case law shows that the state has the authority," Moreno said.
Dennis Zell, an attorney who lives on Trousdale Drive, is asking the City Council to enact the ordinance but said the city's staff is coming out against the proposal because of the legal issue. He said the city's staff is proposing the city set aside $775,000 to fight any legal action. Zell has offered to defend the city pro bono.
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"It's ludicrous. ... Fortunately, the staff doesn't make the decision. We'll take our best case to the council and hope they're not scared off by the doomsday predictions of the staff," Zell said.
PG&E is proposing to run the power line underground from Redwood City down Skyline Boulevard to Trousdale Boulevard down to El Camino Real then north to just south of San Francisco.
Called the Jefferson Martin 230 kV Transmission Line Project, it is being planned to add capacity to San Francisco and the Peninsula as far south as Burlingame. PG&E officials say the line is necessary to prepare for future power needs. However, a number of residents worry that the electromagnetic fields the lines create will have a deleterious effect on their health.
PG&E officials counter that, since the lines will be underground and insulated, the lines will emit less EMFs than what is normally encountered in an office or school computer lab.
A number of neighborhood opposition groups have formed in opposition of the power line project. However, the CPUC has already determined that the Trousdale route is the preferred route for the new line.
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