Should energy company tear down Morro Bay power plant stacks? City says community has say
The owners of the shuttered Morro Bay Power Plant site must tear down the plant’s prominent stacks and other structures by 2028, or pay the city $3 million.
That’s according to an agreement reached by Vistra Corp. and the Morro Bay City Council.
The City Council will have the authority to determine the fate of whether the stacks remain after consideration of community input, which will be a “community decision,” city manager Scott Collins said.
The council voted 5-0 to approve the agreement at a Wednesday meeting, formalizing a deal with Vistra and establishing other conditions related to the waterfront property bordering the Embarcadero.
According to a city news release, additional measures agreed upon by the city and Vistra include allowing the city to purchase needed easements from Vista for the Water Reclamation Facility project for $1 .
Both parties also pledged to participate in a “robust community conversation and engagement about the future of the (power plant) site, including informing City Council decision about whether or not the city should require Vistra to keep the ‘stacks,’ ” the release said.
“We feel this agreement is a good deal for the city, as it provides the opportunity for Vistra to tear down worn out, contaminated power plant structures, and opens the door for future redevelopment of this key site in our community,” Mayor John Headding said in the release. “We look forward to working closely with the community on reviewing these opportunities.”
Demolishing the stacks is a potential first step toward Vistra’s larger plan to build a 22-acre, 600-megawatt battery storage facility in Morro Bay. Once constructed, it would be the world’s largest facility of its kind.
The agreement reached Wednesday establishes a commitment to “engaging with the community about the future of the stacks and reviewing the potential battery storage project proposed by Vistra, which is under review now by City staff,” the release states.
Morro Bay and Vistra have been entrenched in litigation surrounding the easements, but a memorandum of understanding drops the lawsuit, according to the staff report.
The proposed battery storage project will still need to “go through a rigorous environmental and planning review process prior to anticipated public hearings with the Planning Commission and City Council,” the news release noted.
The city will also ask for community input about what could potentially happen to the rest of the power plant site.
“The city is eager to have public input, which could modify the proposed project, and perhaps more importantly, the council has not made any decisions yet on the proposed project,” the release noted, nor is the City Council making any decisions about the proposed project because the Vistra MOU agreement is approved.
The battery storage facility would provide “sufficient economic returns to Vistra to fund removal of the existing turbine building” and the stacks, the city added. “If the proposed battery storage project becomes uneconomical for Vistra, or Vistra otherwise decides not to proceed, and Vistra does not tear down the Morro Bay Power Plant by 2028, the Vistra MOU agreement requires that Vistra will nonetheless pay $3,000,000 to the City.”
The city will address public safety concerns and review the potential impacts of the project during a California Environmental Quality Act review process, with independent experts providing analysis.
In response to a public question about potential flooding near the power plant site, the city wrote that the city’s current wastewater treatment plant, which was denied in 2013 for a proposed upgrade by the California Coastal Commission, was located in a “tsunami inundation zone, and (Federal Emergency Management Act) 100-year flood zone, and in an area potentially subject to sea level rise impacts by the year 2100.”
The battery storage facility would be located in a tsunami inundation zone, as are most of the areas in the city located near the waterfront, the city noted.
“The anticipated (environmental impact review) will look at this issue as part of the environment review process that has just started for the proposed project,” Morro Bay officials said. “Other issues noted above do not apply to the specific location of the proposed (battery storage) project on the former tank farm site at the power plant.”
For more information about proposed projects in Morro Bay, go to morro-bay.ca.us/842/Current-Planning-Projects.
This story was originally published June 11, 2021 at 2:15 PM.
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