A recent court battle unearthed that the city exempts certain kinds of work from triggering a greenhouse gas emissions analysis under its Climate Action Plan.
By MacKenzie Elmer / Voice of San Diego / October 25, 2021
A recent court battle over burying power lines in San Diego neighborhoods unearthed a potentially large shortcoming in the city’s signature climate policy: The city isn’t tracking, and therefore attempting to reduce, tons of planet-warming gases created by infrastructure projects.
San Diego approved a batch of undergrounding projects across a handful of neighborhoods in early 2019, work that involved digging miles of 5-foot-deep and almost 3-foot-wide trenches and potential street tree removal along the public right of way, according to court records. Kensington resident Margaret McCann in January 2020 sued the city to stop the undergrounding. She argued the city didn’t consider greenhouse gas emissions when it weighed the project’s environmental impact.
“That makes no sense,” said Todd Cardiff, an attorney representing McCann. “If you’re trenching and using excavating machinery five days a week (for undergrounding), eight hours a day you’re clearly creating significant motor emissions.”
Fourth District Court of Appeals Judge Judith Haller essentially agreed, joined by judges Judith McConnell and William Dato. The city, she ruled, exempts certain kinds of work from triggering a greenhouse gas emissions analysis under its Climate Action Plan, a policy document that’s supposed to guide San Diego toward cutting 50 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. The city still has about 1,000 miles of overhead lines to bury with a goal of undergrounding 15 miles per year.
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