REDONDO BEACH, Calif. — Despite the efforts of elected officials and nearby residents, a power plant will continue to operate off the water’s edge in Redondo Beach until at least the end of 2021 – and possibly beyond.

The AES Redondo Generation Station was one of four ocean-cooled power plants granted operating extensions by the California State Water Resources Control Board at the water board’s Sept. 1 meeting. The power plant at Redondo Beach was issued a one-year extension; power plants at Huntington Beach, Alamitos, and Ormond Beach were issued three-year extensions.

The extensions were issued to satisfy state regulator concerns that the power grid may not be able to absorb the losses of those four plants from the grid by year’s end. The water board’s 4-0 vote, which also extended a closure deadline for the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, ensures that those plants will remain available while the state works to bulk up the grid.

“At the end of the day, they went with staff’s recommendation, which was to extend AES Redondo for one year – and I’ve got to tell you, they set the table for more extensions,” Redondo Beach Mayor Bill Brand said at a meeting of Redondo’s City Council later that day. “We’ll have to stay on it.”

Though there were supporters and detractors for each of the plants on the table, the Redondo plant was by far the most contentious – by one staff count, of the 747 submitted public comments on the matter, 650 were related to Redondo Beach. Likewise, a majority of the speakers focused on Redondo, whether they were the city’s elected officials, residents, or members of nearby affected communities, including neighboring Hermosa Beach.

Brand, with Redondo Beach Councilmembers Nils Nehrenheim, Todd Loewenstein, and Christian Horvath, and City Attorney Michael Webb, argued against the extension on a number of fronts: that the plant provides a negligible amount of power compared to its contemporaries; that its technology is outdated and inefficient; that it harms marine life; that keeping it open would unduly affect 21,000 densely-located nearby residents who may breathe in the fine particulates generated by the natural gas plant.

But the board was unswayed by their arguments. The most impactful evidence may have been presented shortly after the board’s lunch break when Vice Chair Dorene D’Adamo asked staff about a requested recommendation that did not include Redondo.

“We went back to the energy agencies and asked them if it was possible to meet their reliability without Redondo Beach, and the answer was no,” said water board Chief Deputy Director Jonathan Bishop.

It’s undeniable that residents and officials are eager to clear coastal land that has been home to a power plant in one form or another for more than a century, with the aim of many to convert it to open space.

During a report to the board, a staffer acknowledged the concerns raised by commenters on the Redondo Beach plant. “But this amendment is not the proper venue” to determine land use issues, they said.

In 2010, the California State Water Resources Control Board adopted a policy that would require the shutdown of all coastal power plants that use once-through cooling systems. The final date of operation for many of those power plants, including AES Redondo, was set for Dec. 31, 2020.

Once-through cooling draws in water to cool its generators before flushing that water back into the ocean. But that system risks harming larger marine life, like fish and mammals, by trapping them against intake screens, and kills smaller marine life, like larvae and eggs, when they are drawn through the cooling system and exposed to high temperatures and pressures.

In 2019, the Statewide Advisory Committee on Cooling Water Intake Structures determined that those closures may cause power grid shortages. In January, that committee recommended that the state water board postpone the closure of four power plants: the plants in Alamitos, Huntington, and Ormond Beach would be delayed by three years, and Redondo Beach for one year.

All of the plants are considered “peakers,” or plants that operate in contingency when the demand for power is high. Since 2016, those four plants have operated on a three-year average at less than 5 percent of capacity, according to a water board staff report. According to that same report, they would continue to be used at times of peak power use.

Not long after recommendations to push out the closure of those plants went public, the City of Oxnard reached an agreement with GenOn California South, the owner of the Ormond Beach plant: if Oxnard agrees to support a three-year extension, GenOn would pay $25 million into a fund to dismantle the plant and remediate the local environment.

Leo Pustilnikov is a principal in the ownership group purchasing the AES plant for its real estate potential and had been pursuing the purchase for more than a year and a half. When he heard about the Oxnard deal, he made a pitch to AES: the longer the plant stays open, the more AES would pay to remediate the land.

Pustilnikov then set a deal before the city: if they agree to support an extension up to three years, he would agree to establish 25 acres of privately-owned public open space on the property in a legally-binding covenant.

He saw it as a win-win-win: AES gets paid to operate, he gets paid to remediate the land, and the city doesn’t have to pay for new open space.

But the City of Redondo Beach was banking on a different deal, one previously proposed by Putilnikov. In his original push to purchase the AES real estate, he offered to sell the city just under half of the 51-acre power plant land at $2 million an acre.

Redondo, feeling there was an agreement in principle, won the support of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors to establish an infrastructure tax district. The city worked with state-level representatives to secure state grants.

But Pustilnikov changed his mind, and changed the deal, for one major reason: he was upset with Redondo Beach.

The city, he said, “dragged its feet for six months” on selling him the lease rights associated with the Redondo Beach waterfront, the city’s pier, and harbor area.

“The idea of selling them the land was dead when my buying the waterfront was dead,” Pustilnikov said.

So, with that in mind and the Ormond deal in front of him, Pustilnikov made the city a new offer. When Redondo didn’t bite, he moved forward with the purchase without them. He closed on the property in late March; AES continues to operate the plant under a lease.

Though a great many of the commenters sought to do away with the extension on the Redondo plant, others also urged that all of the plants remain open an additional three years.

“We are decades down the road after we’ve been told that renewables will allow us to retire plants like this, and we’re still having blackouts” said Gareth Smith. “And you’re thinking about closing a plant that could provide us power if needed? Are you kidding? You need to keep Redondo Beach open for three years. You need all the capacity you can get.”

Redondo resident Melanie Cohen got emotional when discussing the ongoing fight by many residents to close the plant.

“I’m begging you to listen to the people of Redondo who came, hundreds of them. The only reason why this plan is even being considered in this fashion is because the citizens of Redondo Beach stood up,” Cohen said. “We have worked hard to make our city better, and we need this facility closed.”

Members of the water board said they felt for the residents but ultimately chose to listen to their staff members.

“If I were living in the Redondo Beach community, I absolutely would undertake the course of action that many of the advocates took,” said Vice Chair D’Adamo. “Unfortunately, we’re at the tail end here…and these issues of grid reliability could potentially become more and more important.”

The board left open the possibility of again extending the closure of the Redondo plant by one more year, beyond 2021, depending on the power demands of the grid. But, should another extension come onto the table, the board will revisit the matter of adjusting mitigation fees being paid by the operators of the plants.

“As much work as it was, and as frustrating as it was, we went from a three-year extension to two years, down to one year,” Mayor Brand said. “To hold them to one year is going to take some work on our part, but that’s to be continued.”