Redondo Beach’s 190th Street power lines may come down
A Southern California Edison feasibility study shows that the power lines running along 190th Street may come down after the AES power plant retires. Photo
If the intersection of Herondo Street and Pacific Coast Highway is Redondo Beach’s front porch, the entranceway along 190th Street is covered with webs that mar one of the South Bay’s most majestic views. According to Mayor Bill Brand, the City of Redondo Beach may soon be able to clear the view, by partnering with Southern California Edison to remove the rows of power lines and towers that connect the AES power plant to the local power grid.
Edison submitted a feasibility study to the City two weeks ago, more than a year after Redondo requested a feasibility study for the cost of removing or relocating the power lines on Edison’s 190th Street right-of-way.
It’s largely good news for the city: Edison believes that once the AES plant is retired, likely in 2021, the towering 220-kilovolt lines can be removed at no cost to the city. The smaller 66-kilovolt lines between Beryl Street and the power plant may also be removed. However, the city has three options for overhead lines between Prospect Avenue and Beryl: leave them as is, underground them, or relocate them (either as overhead or underground lines). The cost for those options runs between $1.4 million and $7.9 million.
Redondo would also be responsible for $10.6 million for changes to 16-kilovolt distribution circuits between Edison’s two power-plant area substations and Beryl Street.
Figures stated within the study are in 2019 dollars and may change based on engineering and system unit costs.
Redondo’s City Council has not yet officially received the report, nor discussed it during a City Council meeting. Those discussions will take place at future meetings.
Removing the power lines may then clear a path for Redondo to establish a greenbelt between Dominguez Park and developer Leo Pustilnikov’s envisioned regional park and development at the AES plant site — such designs have danced in the heads of Brand and Pustilnikov for more than a year. But one business owner, who has seen the power lines as a fact of life for decades, wonders what good that will truly do for Redondo Beach.
Teresa Serrato shrugs when she’s asked what she thinks removing the power lines will mean for Peter’s Garden Center. The nursery, which sits on three acres of land under the power lines, was opened by her grandfather 75 years ago, and has leased the land from Edison for decades.
Serrato, like her parents before her, is a product of Redondo Beach, and lives blocks away from her family’s business. She’s heard dozens of plans over the years: some promised to tear down the power plant, to take down the power lines, to redevelop the empty lot under Redondo’s Gateway Arch, to redevelop the pier. At 67 years old, she’s been opposed some of them, and is now skeptical of all of them.
“How is this going to bring any money to the city?” Serrato asks. “How is this going to help us financially?”
Redondo’s biggest problem, she said, is the deteriorating pier and power plant, followed by homelessness and the City’s other money woes. The power lines themselves — and ideas to turn the right-of-way into a greenbelt — are comparably small potatoes to her.
As for Peter’s Garden Center, Serrato isn’t concerned. Though she’s nearing her retirement age, she plans to work for as long as her body lets her. But she has no children, and her nephews don’t seem interested in taking up her gardening shears, so whether she’ll close up shop or sell the business is unclear. Whatever happens — whether Peter’s closes, or Edison, the city or an outside investor decide to jump in on her business’s lease — she’ll move forward, grateful for the time her family’s business has had.
But the power lines just seem like they’re beside the point.
“I’m used to them. I don’t even see them anymore,” Serrato said.