Following a caustic and prolonged election, the Peninsula Community Planning Board got back to business Thursday after seating newly elected members Darrold Davis, Gary Halbert, Suhail Khalil and Mark Hoppe.
District 2 Councilman Kevin Faulconer presented plaques to outgoing board members Jarvis Ross, Edwina Goddard and Cynthia Conger. Faulconer said he did it in recognition of their service, thanking them for their years of dedication.
Cleo Pearson was not present at the meeting.
“The outgoing members have put a lot of time and effort into serving the Peninsula and I just wanted to recognize them for all of their service,” Faulconer said. “[Board members] volunteer their time and they do it because they care about the community.”
Although unable to retain their seats on the board, Conger and Ross were elected to serve on subcommittees during Thursday’s meeting.
With its board configuration settled, PCPB members turned their attention to a presentation about the future of the Point Loma Wastewater Facility.
Thomas R. Alspaugh, a senior mechanical engineer with the city’s Metropolitan Wastewater Department, presented the board with a plan to convert some of the natural gas emitted from the plant into electricity.
The Beneficial Use Digester Gas (BUDG) process collects compressed natural gas from digester tanks, which break down organic material in wastewater, Alspaugh said.
“Digesters do the same thing that our stomach does, and one of those things is that it produces digestive gasses,” Alspaugh said.
The compressed gas could be shipped to three or four locations around the city and converted into electricity for future use, he said. These locations have special fuel cells that will reuse the gas and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, he said.
Locations would include Qualcomm Stadium, UCSD and possibly the San Diego Zoo, he said.
The process will reduce carbon dioxide by 7,000 tons a year, he said. Under the plan, controlled pollutants of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide will be reduced by 97 percent, compared with the plant’s low emission flares that currently burn the harmful gasses, he said.
One of the reasons Alspaugh gave the presentation was to alert the board about trucks that will drive through Point Loma as they move the gas.
Large industrial trucks, which are about the same size as gasoline delivery trucks, will take about six round trips a day through Point Loma.
Possible paths include routes along Rosecrans Street, Chatsworth Boulevard, Nimitz Boulevard and Catalina Boulevard.
“For the good of what it’s going to do for the community and the world, it’s a small price to pay,” said Cydney Shinn, Peninsula planning board treasurer.
Alspaugh said forming a BUDG traffic collaborative to determine routes and times would be beneficial. The team would include members from the Peninsula planning board and other government representatives from the community, he said.
The project will produce $250,000 a year for Metropolitan Wasetwater Department over the length of the five- to ten-year contract with BOC, the largest industrial gas producer in the world, he said.
Alspaugh said he plans to present the option to the City Council for approval in July or September, scheduling permitting.
Mayor Jerry Sanders was expected to make an announcement in June concerning the future of the Point Loma Wastewater Plant, said Bill Harris, deputy press secretary for Sanders. Scheduling conflicts prevented the mayor from announcing, however, whether or not the plant would be retrofitted for “secondary treatment,” he said.
In November 1995 and September 2002, the city obtained waivers to the secondary treatment requirement of the federal Clean Water Act. The waivers allow the facility to clean wastewater without putting it through a secondary treatment process, according to the city’s Web site. The city has until December to file for another waiver, Harris said.
The Point Loma Wastewater Plant processes about 180 million gallons of wastewater a day and produces enough energy to power 7,000 homes, Alspaugh said.
About 80 percent of solid waste is removed before the rest of the water, or effluent, is released into the ocean through a 4.5-mile-long ocean outfall, according to the city’s Web page.