Substation

PG&E are proposing to develop a 6-acre electrical substation within the rural Watsonville corridor area of Morgan Hill. Five 10-acre sites have been selected as candidates for the substation development:

Watsonville-A :: Watsonville Road and West San Martin Lane

Watsonville-B :: Watsonville Road and Uvas Road

Watsonville-C :: Watsonville Road and Redwood Retreat

Sycamore :: Sycamore Drive and Armsby Lane

Day :: Day Road (close to Watsonville Road)

The image on this page shows the potential impact to just one of the sites, the other Watsonville corridor locations could become just as environmentally damaging and detrimental to the area.

These five proposed sites are all situated within areas of natural beauty, some are specifically designated by Santa Clara County as Scenic Roads others form part of the South Valley Wine Trail. Without exception, developing an industrial scale electrical substation will severely impact the rural beauty both residents and wineries alike work hard to maintain. There will be no disguising a fenced in, brightly lit, industrial compound which will no doubt repel tourists, visitors and residents from this world class wine producing area. This charming landscape will be transformed into an industrial complex. Your property value will suffer.

This petition proposes that developing on any one of the Watsonville corridor sites will cause irreparable damage to the landscape and community and significantly affect property values. Instead, the petition proposes that PG&E upgrade the substation located on West Main Avenue in Morgan Hill which will make use of the existing infrastructure and have less environmental impact on an already designated electrical facility.

PG&E's plans along with proposed site maps can be found here

Fire Danger

Beyond the irreparable damage to the environment, there will be an increased fire danger in a zone already designated as a High Fire Danger zone. This recent CAL Fire Report illustrates a worrying 25% of the top 20 destructive fires in California were caused by electrical faults.

Uninvited attention

Yet more disturbing is the attraction the substation would hold for vandals and even organized attacks as witnessed at the Metcalf facility in Coyote Ranch Road, San Jose: Metcalf Substation Sniper Attack. Electrical substations appear to be a common target for nefarious activity. If the more obvious locations such as Metcalf can't be adequately protected then a rural site within the Watsonville Road corridor would make an easy target.

Sign the petition

There are several other locations available to PG&E that do not pose these environmental problems and are located closer to the existing substation at Main Avenue. PG&E's plans for the development will be submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission in early to mid-2017. Please add your name to this petition and tell others that may be affected by PG&E's proposal. We need to speak loud, clear and often to PG&E so that our collective voice can be heard and have them reconsider more appropriate locations other than the five sites located in the Watsonville Road corridor.