Background & Alternatives
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has announced plans to build a new power distributing station in the Marquez Knolls residential enclave of Pacific Palisades. The target location is an undeveloped lot immediately adjacent to the Marquez Charter school. A link to LADWP's website is here. This boondoggle and its risks are unnecessary. The existing "pole-top" distributing stations that LADWP has already installed are permanent solutions. LADWP should complete the program of installing the complete set of unobtrusive "pole-tops" it envisioned in 2017 or find another location for the distributing station.
The proposed project is a new electrical “distributing station.” A distributing station is a part of the DWP’s electrical generation, transmission, and distribution system. It transforms voltage from high to low between the generating plant and the residential consumer. In this case, the distributing station would be a 30-megavolt ampere distributing station. New underground work throughout the neighborhood would also be required.
Construction would take three and a half years and would ultimately result in a facility covering one acre (about the size of a football field). The distributing station would include highly flammable and explosive transformers, circuit breakers, switchgear, and other equipment.
DWP has proposed the distributing station be located on an approximately 1.9 acre undeveloped lot immediately adjacent to Marquez Charter (the “Marquez Lot”) at 16931 Marquez Avenue, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272. The location is in the heart of Marquez Knolls, a quiet residential enclave populated by many families with young children. The site is bordered by single-family homes to the south and the east, a canyon of natural vegetation to the west, and Marquez Charter to the north. The Marquez Lot borders the entire length of the southern fence of the Marquez Charter lower playground.
The homes surrounding and the elementary school directly adjacent to the Marquez Lot were developed in the 1950s. Around 1969, DWP set out to acquire a site for an eventual second distributing station in the Palisades. Exercising a “low-key community involvement approach” (i.e., a tactic “involving the ‘interested individuals and public organizations’ only after permit applications are filed’”), DWP reviewed three potential sites in Marquez Knolls and decided to acquire the Marquez Lot. Without focusing on public safety or the environment, DWP settled on the Marquez Lot primarily because of its “lowest overall cost.” Remarkably, in a 1969 Site Selection Report, DWP partially attributed the lot’s “remarkably low” land value to its being “within a known unstable area.” Undeterred by the site’s geological problems, DWP initiated condemnation proceedings to obtain the land by force when purchase negotiations apparently failed.
In 1971, DWP applied for a Conditional Use Permit from the City Planning Department to allow construction of a distributing-station on the residential-zoned lot. At the time, the CUP was quietly approved without the benefit of today’s broad array of environmental protection laws and regulations. Regardless, DWP ultimately shelved the project for nearly four decades, and the Marquez Lot remained undeveloped. Meanwhile, the surrounding residential area flourished, as did Marquez Charter next door.
In 2010, DWP renewed its interest in building a second distributing station in addition to the existing one in the Palisades Village area. DWP re-evaluated whether the Marquez Lot was still preferable or if a better site for the proposed distributing-station existed. DWP started preparing an “Addendum” to its original 1969 Site Selection Report and retained outside environmental consultants to prepare a parallel “Comparative Site Evaluation.” Completed in 2011, the studies confirmed the many environmental and safety problems regarding the Marquez Lot raised by the community since the February Town Hall.
These 2011 site selection and evaluation studies further identified a new preferred site for the proposed distributing station – an approximately 1.2 acre L-shaped property located at the southwestern tip of Topanga State Park and that wraps around Fire Station 23. Accordingly, DWP preliminarily inquired with State Parks about acquiring the land. DWP also consulted certain “individuals of influence around the Fire Station Site.” DWP’s trail of internal correspondence suggests that, upon encountering their resistance, DWP redirected its focus to the Marquez Lot, likely in hopes of garnering more support for putting the proposed distributing station there instead.
In 2017 and 2018, LADWP installed "pole-top" substations in the Palisades. There is one at Sunset and Marquez and one at Temescal and Marquez. These permanent installations exist throughout the City and they work. In the most recent power outages that swept the City in the year 2020, the Pacific Palisades' lights stayed on. This was in part to the major electrical upgrades that LADWP has done over the years and these unobtrusive "pole-top" substations.
LADWP had always planned to install additional "pole-tops" that would further harden our electrical infrastructure, but some have objected to these relatively minor equipment pieces and are pushing to spend tens of millions of dollars on a 30-megavolt ampere distributing station on more than an acre of land next to Marquez Charter Elementary.
These "pole-tops" are a permanent solution that lasts decades. They have none of the risks, costs, and harm of a distributing station next to Marquez Charter Elementary.
Known for its academic excellence, extra-curricular enrichment, and generous parent involvement and contributions, Marquez Charter is truly a gem within LAUSD. It is an award-winning California Distinguished Honor School with an API Score of 900+. It is one of only two public elementary schools in the Pacific Palisades, serving all areas west of Temescal Canyon, including Marquez Knolls, Highlands, Las Casas flats, Pacific View Estates, Castellemare, and Bienvenida Bluffs.
Many young families specifically move to Pacific Palisades for their children to attend Marquez Charter. In addition, approximately 20% of the students choose to come from other areas of Los Angeles to attend Marquez Charter.
Despite the current state and local educational budget crisis, the school has managed to maintain a high level of performance. This is due in large part to the active involvement of Marquez Charter parents who, for example, raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the school every year to offer enrichment programs and reduce class sizes through the funding of additional teachers.