<></>It’s too soon to tell how Duke Energy’s plans to sell its Moss Landing power plant may affect the proposed desalination project. But local environmentalists hope that the sale—coupled with the impending renewal of the plant’s pollution discharge permit—will give the public a bargaining chip in the ongoing effort to clean up the power plant’s operation, with or without a desal project onsite.

Last week, Duke Energy announced the sale of eight power plants—four of them in California—to a subsidiary of LS Power Equity Partners, an investment firm that specializes in the energy industry, for about $1.5 billion. The other California plants to be sold are a 165-watt peaker plant in Oakland; a 1,002-megawatt plant at Morro Bay, and a 10-year lease on a 700-megawatt plant in Chula Vista.

Coincidentally, Duke Energy’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit for the 538-megawatt Moss Landing power plant expired at the end of 2005. The Clean Water Act prohibits the discharge of pollutants without a NPDES permit. The Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board will review that permit in June. In the meantime, the permit has been automatically renewed.

Environmentalists like Madeline Clark of the Elkhorn Slough Coalition say the timing for the renewal of the permit, which expires every five years, is “perfect.”

“With that permit coming up for renewal,” she says, “it gives us a great opportunity for full disclosure and what the intentions or options are regarding the desal plant. These permits are only good for five years so it gives the public an opportunity to weigh in on mitigation measures and lessen effects that the power plant may have on the environment.”

Clark has reason to be optimistic. The permit’s renewal in 2000 resulted in significant changes to power plant operations, which proved beneficial to the Slough.

“We were delighted with the last go around,” Clark says. “When Duke bought the power plant [from PG&E in 1998] and had to get their first permit in 2000, a lot of things were brought to the public’s attention. The old part of the plant used 90 percent of the facility’s water. Consequently, because of strong objections, Duke no longer uses the old part of the plant. The impact was too great.”

In this go round, when the permit review process begins in five months, Clark says she hopes that the old part of the plant, which is still used as a “peaker plant” to meet high demands for energy during cold snaps and heat waves, will be permanently mothballed.

David Hicks, a Duke spokesperson, says that there is no correlation between the plant’s sale and the expiration of the NPDES permit.

“Moss is one of eight plants being sold,” Hicks says. “There are much larger stakes here.”

As for the desalination plant, Hicks is optimistic that the sale will not hinder the project.

“Duke and the new owners will live up to whatever agreements were made,” he says. “It’s safe to say that the pilot plant will go forward as planned.”

Clark is quick to point out that her organization is not “against” the power plant.

“We just want to make sure the Elkhorn Slough is protected and whatever is done is done right,” she says. “That means little or no impact to the Slough. We just want to save the Elkhorn Slough.”

Darpan Kapadia, managing director of the LS Power Group, told the Weekly that “there’s very little or nothing” he could say about the transaction or its repercussions other than the fact that the firm is “committed to making the transition of assets from Duke to LS Power a smooth one for the employees and the local communities.”