| I am sad to report to you that the environmentally damaging AES cooling water pumps recently got a three-year extension from the State Water Resources Control Board to keep operating. AES’s pumps kill a lot of marine life because they suck in huge amounts of water from Alamitos Bay to cool their generators. Those pumps (and others like them) were supposed to be phased out because of all the damage they cause to marine life. But the State of California is concerned about the reliability of the energy grid so they were granted an extension. Sure, we get it, reliability is important, perhaps even more so these days, as the climate gets more extreme. But for the health of the planet, plants and animals, AND humans we have to transition (quickly) away from our reliance on carbon-producing energy sources. And for the health and restoration of the wetlands, the pumps must be permanently shut down. The government has been “balancing” these extensions (since the pumps kill so much sea life) by funding marine protected areas off the coast of California. We love marine life and marine protected areas but our local power plant is an unusual case. AES Alamitos is a gas-powered energy plant that sits in wetlands and thus, is killing marine life specific to wetlands. We made the case to the Water Board that if they allow the local AES powerplant to continue to run, any required mitigation should go to improving the local Los Cerritos Wetlands marine ecosystem. We hope the decision makers will agree when they meet again to talk about how best to calculate the mitigation and how best to spend the mitigation fees. You can read further details here. We will update you as we learn more. |