Letter: School Board's Passage of Power Plant Resolution Applauded

I want to applaud the Redondo Beach Board of Education for its courage in passing a resolution against the rebuilding of a power plant within a stone’s throw of many of our students. While bullied into watering the resolution down by a large number of individuals recruited by AES, the statements in the resolution questioning whether the plant was needed and the wisdom of locating the plant in the middle of a residential and commercial area were significant.

It was amusing to hear some of the AES apologists' arguments, such as the plant has been there a 100 years so it must be safe, that it hadn’t hurt their son or daughter since they turned out fine, or that we should be trust the government’s judgment to protect us. Aren’t these some of the same people who tell us the government can’t be trusted not to come take their guns away or to regulate much of anything?

Make no mistake about it, the rebuilt power plant will be the No. 1 single polluter in Redondo Beach and will lead to more premature death and disability than any other single source of pollution. AES’s own filings indicate fine particulate contamination will be more than 6 tons per month from this so-called “clean” plant. I encourage all readers to read AES’s application for yourself at http://www.energy.ca.gov/sitingcases/redondo_beach/documents/applicant/AFC/Vol_1/. Look at the charts in section 5.1 (air quality) and see for yourself the increase in toxins, including the most dangerous small fine particulates (defined as smaller than 2.5 microns). I also encourage the reader to take a minute to watch the EPA’s brief slide show at http://www.epa.gov/airnow/pm/pm.html that describes some of the adverse health effects of these poisons.

If our city council had the courage of the school board and taken a position to resist the AES plans, there would have been no need for Measure A. The failure of our elected representatives to protect the health of the South Bay residents left us citizens no choice but to stand up for our own health. Please vote YES on Measure A and NO to rebuilding the AES power plant.

Roger Light, Ph.D.
Clinical Neuropsychologist
Redondo Beach

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