Greetings everyone,

Before I get in to this month's Update, take a moment to view my interview that appeared on CNN's Local Edition last month. It ran for about a week right after the usual 1/2 hour CNN news broadcast. Go to our webpage and just click on it:

Many thanks to everyone who renewed their membership to the SBPC! We could not continue with our mission to convert the AES site to a park without your support. Thanks to your generosity, we have the resources to continue for another year educating and advocating to anyone that will listen about what a great opportunity we have right here in the South Bay!

The buzz about our project is growing! Last week I attended a symposium on once-through-cooling in Sacramento. It was sponsored by the State Water Resources Control Board - a mouthful I know - and the California Energy Commission. If you read our last newsletter you might recall the article by Jack McCurdy that talked about the 21 coastal power plants in California like AES that use the Pacific Ocean to cool their operations, causing great harm to the local waters.

Amazingly, 2 of the 5 presentations I attended discussed the feasibility of retrofitting the Redondo Beach AES power plant. Both had aerial photos of the plant that I recognized right away. They were profiling AES Redondo as an example of a site NOT suitable for retrofitting to the new technology that El Segundo and others are converting to - closed-cycle-cooling - and given its proximity to a densely populated urban community, NOT suitable for repowering either. One report even mentioned 'Heart Park', and the desire of the community to convert this brownfield to a waterfront park.

Here were two different consultants, both hired by the California Energy Commission, coming to the same conclusions we came to years ago. In a room full of dour engineers I wanted to raise my arms and yell "Yea Baby! That's what I'm talking about!"

Look for more frequent Updates this year. There's going to be a lot of developments, so I might post twice a month occasionally.

Happy New Year!

Bill Brand

President

South Bay Parkland Conservancy

1719 Via El Prado #408

Redondo Beach, CA 90277

310-809-4405