By Greg Curran

May 27, 2021 (Jacumba Hot Springs) -- The community of Jacumba Hot Springs needs your voice to push back again the impending destruction of our small rural community which has been designated as a Colonia.

Jacumba is a diverse, low income community (~50 percent white, ~38 percent Latino or Hispanic, ~20 percent Pacific Islander.) Many of the residents are renters, and a large number are disabled and living on small fixed incomes. With Jacumba's affordable home prices (100K to 200K), people have an opportunity to own a modest home here. However, they will not have the resources to move to a more expensive community if the developer (BayWe re) is successful in pushing through a 623 acre utility-scale solar project within the Jacumba village boundary. This solar project will provide no jobs for locals and more importantly, it will keep Jacumba from growing or ever having a border crossing, things that would improve the vitality of this currently economically depressed town.(See brief project summary.)

Previously in April 2021, the Jacumba Sponsor Group voted to approve a 200 acre solar facility that would be pulled back away for residences, the Jacumba airport, and scenic Highway 80. On May 18, 2021, the sponsor group voted unanimously to deny the 623 acre Jacumba Valley Ranch (JVR) project for a variety of reasons.

Just two days ago, we learned that San Diego Community Power will be voting today on whether to approval a 20 year power purchase agreement with the JVR solar developer. It is item 16 on their agenda.

By Miriam Raftery

November 12, 2014 (San Diego’s East County) – Viejas Chairman Anthony Pico met with Steve Black, a senior counselor to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, on February 28, 2012 and sent Black a letter  on March 5, 2012 asking him to visit Ocotillo to address tribal concerns over desecration of cultural resources  from the proposed Ocotillo Wind Energy Facility (which was since approved and built). Donna Tisdale, then with Protect Our Communities, has documents showing Black was also involved with federal approval of the controversial Tule Wind project, fielding requests from Iberdrola Renewables to help gain approval of the project in East County despite concerns about eagles.

Neither Pico nor Tisdale had any idea that Black was dating an energy company lobbyist at the time – or that he sought to gain a job as chief executive officer of the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the wind industry's trade group, while still employed at the Department of the Interior.   But an investigation by the Department of Interior's Inspector General has raised these concerns and more.

BP and Amonix seek to reap the sun in East County

By Miriam Raftery