The California Coastal Commission has just denied the expansion of the City of Morro Bay’s sewer plant because it was located within an area likely to be inundated by sea level rise.
The Napa Pipe site is just 7 feet above sea level. The rate of sea level rise has been ever increasing at an alarming rate. Every few years the estimates the sea level has been revised upward.
If Napa Pipe is raised twelve feet as proposed then during flood stage it will be an island cut off from the rest of the County because the roads and sewer services will be swamped. A wise man does not build his house on sand; neither does he build his house in a flood zone.
2012 has gone down into US history as the hottest year ever. Scientists universally concur it is as the result of our production of greenhouse gases. Our energy production is a major contributor of to warming planet.
The Napa County Green Party believes that the property should remain an industrial use; best used for siting a solar power plant.
The Sterling Engine solar design where sunlight is focused at raised central boiler on a tower can produce four times the electricity as a photovoltaic system. A Community Choice Aggregation program should be set up to give electrical customers a choice for renewable, sustainable, locally produced, and life affirming energy.
The Rural-Urban Limit Line was established to contain the growth and has provided a model to others throughout the country. We have become a tourist center in part because of our RUL. To cast it aside for such a dubious and foolish site-ing for housing and a commercial use would be breaking with an important protection against sprawl. If approved we are letting the cat out of the bag and it will be hard to contain it ever again.
Preserve Napa’s RUL and deny this project. Let us not go down in history as the generation that let Napa sprawl ever outward. We have drawn a line in the sand. Let’s not obliterate it.
John Stephens
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