The transportation of excess methane gas from the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant — a city-based plan that involves trucking the gas through Peninsula neighborhoods — has some residents along the proposed route up in arms. The project, first presented to local planners in 2007, is expected to be operational by the fall of 2010. The excess methane gas is being sold by the city under contract and will be trucked to a biofuel facility in Encinitas. “We’re directly impacted financially and personally in our safety and our sleep at night,” said John Pedersen, a member of a newly formed citizen group called Homeowners for a Green and Safe Point Loma. “By us going door to door, we have found that residents on our affected streets didn’t know and were outraged that they weren’t asked.” Pedersen said the group would present a petition to the Peninsula Community Planning Board (PCPB) at their Aug. 20 meeting urging the PCPB to stop the proposed trucking of methane gas through their neighborhoods. Streets along the proposed routes that Pedersen provided include Catalina Boulevard, Cañon Street, Rosecrans Street, Lytton Street, Barnett Avenue, Chatsworth Avenue and Nimitz Boulevard. “They can come and present their petition,” said PCPB chair Charles Mellor. “We have open public comment at the beginning of the meeting.” Mellor and city project manager Tom Alspaugh said they were unaware of the petition drive. “It is of note,” Alspaugh said. “We are, as a project group, have been very concerned about the Peninsula community as a whole.” In addition to starting the petition that now has garnered at least 85 signatures, Pedersen – who lives on Catalina Boulevard – distributed a letter last month around his neighborhood. The letter, entitled “Point Loma Residents Seeking Alternatives to Neighborhood Truck Transport of High Pressure Natural Gas — Coming in 2010,” outlines the group’s concerns. “I crafted a letter from me and what I basically did was go door to door from the end of the Point all the way through Lytton,” Pedersen said. According to Pedersen, the citizens group wants the issue to be reopened and the project changed so that it doesn’t involve the trucking of the methane gas. Pedersen said he feels the proj-ect was not properly vetted with the community, that it needs an environmental impact study and that transporting high-pressure gas through neighborhoods is both unsafe and will decrease the value of houses along the route. He does, however, feel the idea of transporting excess methane gas is a good one. “We’re not at war with anybody,” said Randy West, a member of the citizen group who lives on Chatsworth Boulevard. “We’re just saying there’s a way to do this better than the way they’re doing it right now.” Alspaugh said the city tried to make this a public process along the way. He said he has met with the community about eight times during the planning phases of the project. “There was a public process where we advertised to the public if they had any kind of concept that they could finance under our conditions and put together a proj-ect and propose something that was reasonable, we would listen,” Alspaugh said. It is unclear, however, whether it is too late for citizen outcry to make an impact on the project that was first presented two years ago. Alspaugh said the city has had a 10-year contract in place with Encinitas-based BioFuels Energy since June. “The city of San Diego has a contract with BioFuels and they’re obligated to honor that contract,” Alspaugh said. “Before we presented that contract and the various contracts along the way, we have all gone through the various community groups. We did not choose this. We chose a process to go through to choose this.” Construction for the project is slated to begin next spring, with the first trucks hitting the road in fall 2010. When it starts, six to eight trucks per night will transport the compressed methane gas from the wastewater plant through Point Loma to Interstate 5. “There is a timeline that is dependent upon a lot of factors,” Alspaugh said. “It depends upon the financing and permitting and engineering and construction and all the things that are associated with a privatized project like this.” For more information on Homeowners for a Green and Safe Point Loma, call (619) 221-0294 or e-mail [email protected]. The PCPB meeting is Aug. 20 at 6:30 p.m. at the Point Loma Branch Library on 3701 Voltaire St. For more information, visit www.pcpb.net.