Sutter Power Project Final Environmental Impact Statement

Abstract

Western Area Power Administration operates and maintains a high-voltage electric transmission system in California to deliver power to qualified customers. Calpine Corporation has requested that Western study and consider the feasibility of an interconnection with Western's Keswick-Elverta/Olinda-Elverta 230-kilovolt (kV) transmission lines. Calpine proposed to construct and operate of the Sutter Power Project. The project, as proposed, would include a 500 megawatt (MW) natural gas-fueled, combined-cycle, electric generation facility; a new 5.7 mile 230-kV generation tie-line; a transmission line switching station; and a 12-mile (16 inch) natural gas pipeline to connect with Pacific Gas and Electric's Line 302. The siting of the project's generation facility is proposed on a portion of a 77-acre parcel of land owned by Calpine, adjacent to Calpine's existing Greenleaf 1 cogeneration powerplant in Sutter County, approximately 7 miles south of Yuba City and 36 miles northwest of Sacramento. Calpine's stated objective for developing the Sutter Powerplant is to sell power to a mix of retail and wholesale customers in the newly deregulated electricity market. As a ''merchant plant,'' Calpine intends to sell power on a short and mid-term basis to customers, and on the spot market. On July 29, 1998, Western issued a Sutter Powerplant Interconnection Feasibility Study. The study results indicated that the output from the proposed Sutter Powerplant Project would improve system reliability in the generation deficient Sacramento area. Based on Western's interest in improving system reliability and as the owner of the transmission lines for the proposed project interconnection, Western is the lead federal agency responsible for the project's National Environmental Policy Act compliance. The California Energy Commission has the statutory authority to license thermal powerplants of 50 MW or greater. The Energy Commission's siting facility certification process has responsibilities that are functionally equivalent to those of a lead agency under the California Environmental Quality Act. Because of these similar agency responsibilities to examine environmental impacts, Western and the Energy Commission are joint-lead agencies for this project's environmental review. Although this arrangement was successful during the scoping and ''Draft Environmental Impact Statement'' stages of review, the two agency processes were separated at the close of the ''Draft Environmental Impact Statement'' public comment period on December 14, 1998, to assure process integrity for each agency.