MIDDLETOWN — The financially beleaguered Calpine held a meeting Wednesday to update the community on their restructuring, the visitor center, seismicity and to ask the Cobb community to take more money from them.
Held at the newly reopened visitor center in Middletown, Calpine”s general manager, John Farison, welcomed members of the Anderson Springs and Cobb communities and updated them on Calpine”s Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.
Farison said that The Geysers, which is being used to finance Calpine”s restructuring, has now passed the 46-year milestone of producing clean, reliable and renewable energy.
Calpine was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 5, 2005, for low stock prices, which plummeted further when they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Dec. 20, 2005. Their stock Thursday was worth 39 cents a share.
Local residents who were impacted by The Geysers fire in 2004 and have outstanding claims will not be impacted by Calpine”s bankruptcy”s, Farison said; their insurance company will still handle all claims.
Calpine”s restructuring continues along with the production of geothermal energy by injecting treated wastewater from Lake county and Santa Rosa to create more steam.
But it”s this injection and production of energy that is believed to cause “microearthquakes” which have a magnitude of less than 3.0 and was predicted in their environmental impact review, that causes concern for area residents. The concern over seismic activity has resulted in all geothermal energy producers Calpine, Northern California Power Authority (NCPA) and the soon-to-be online Bottle Rock plant (in September) being required to pay geothermal mitigation impact fees to the county and to residents.
Mitch Stark, resource manager for Calpine, explained some of the steps they are taking to lessen the impact of seismicity on Anderson Springs and Cobb.
One is utilizing the Aidlin Field for injection, because it is farther from population centers. They have completed a pipeline and 14 injection wells that will be taking water from Santa Rosa.
Stark noted that there were an average of 800 earthquakes per year over the past 20 years in The Geysers area. He noted that seismicity in the same area had been reported as early as the late 1800s in a book by Robert G. Evans.
Mercury miners in the Pine Flat area reported feeling what they called “trumblers”, or small earthquakes, once or twice per week. But after the 1906 quake hit the San Andreas fault, they only felt one per year.
Asked if it would work in reverse would earthquakes at The Geysers trigger seismicity on the San Andreas, Ma”aacma or the Collayomi faults? Stark replied that it was unlikely. “Small events don”t usually trigger something larger on another fault … the Ma”acama when it slips it won”t be because of the Geysers,” Stark said.
Seismic activity is nothing new to Lake County, home to numerous fault zones and dormant volcanoes. “This is earthquake country,” Stark said.
Stark displayed a graph of earthquakes with a magnitude 1.5 or less and those higher than a magnitude 3 that have occurred in The Geysers since their operations have begun. The graph showed spikes in the number of quakes when injections began with water from Lake County and again when Santa Rosa water was brought in.
“I”ve never felt an earthquake that small and I”m right on top of it. But I do feel the 3.0s,” said Stark.
Residents of Anderson Springs have reported feeling these small quakes, however. “It”s nice to say they”re little,” said Joan Clay, chair of the Anderson Springs Geothermal Impact Mitigation Committee, “but we feel them.”
Jeff Gospe, president of the Anderson Springs Community Alliance, said that the surveys they have done have shown that community members feel the small temblors. “Not every one of them,” Gospe said, “but about 75 percent of them.”
Gospe suggested that perhaps Anderson Springs, which is surrounded on three sides by geothermal operations, feels the smaller earthquakes so well because of their lower elevation.
The Geysers are above Anderson Springs, so when water is injected down and an earthquake occurs, the waves from the quake travel out horizontally which would put them closer to Anderson Springs, Gospe suggested but that hasn”t been studied.
The Anderson Springs and Cobb communities have both formed Geothermal Impact Mitigation Committees to receive money from the energy producers as well as the county due to the impacts of seismicity.
Calpine distributes money through their Community Investment Funds to each committee, which in turn receives applications from the community which they review and either approve or decline.
Anderson Springs has received 19 applications. Nine of them have been approved, seven are pending and three have been denied.
Cobb has received seven applications; five have been denied and two are pending.
“Our preference is for community projects,” Dave Jackson, who represents Calpine on the committees said, “but it”s up to the committee to decide.”
Jackson implored Cobb residents, who were the majority at the meeting to, “get a hold of these folks, call Rob Brown, get them going on this. There”s money available!”
The county also contributes money to both committees to be spent for the benefit of their communities.
“The industry worked really well with us to get this money,” District 1 Supervisor Ed Robey said.
“Actually, Calpine told us about it,” said county Chief Administrative Officer Kelly Cox.
“Because of changes to the Geothermal Steam Act in the 2005 Energy bill,” Farison said, “We have been able to increase the percentage … of funds that come back to the county. About $1 million per year.”
Calpine pays leases to the federal government on public lands in The Geysers steam field.
The federal government used to pay the money to the state first, then the state would pay a portion to the county. Now that money comes directly to the county.
“It will more than double what we”ve been getting exclusively with the regular AB 1905 funds,” Cox said, but they are not sure if the same guidelines for how it is spent will apply. “It appears we will have more flexibility in spending, but we don”t know.”
Contact Terre Logsdon at tlogsdon@record-bee.com.
