New Approach to Site Selection Studies

The San Diego Gas & Electric Company has broken the tradition of performing confidential site selection studies in favor of full public disclosure on a recent study for a fossil-fueled power plant in San Diego County, Calif. San Diego Gas & Electric formally invited interested environmental and local citizen planning groups to participate in the project. Nineteen groups sent representatives to form an ad hoc environmental committee. Dames & Moore served as environmental consultants to the ad hoc committee and San Diego Gas & Electric. The matrix developed for evaluating five proposed sites is summarized. After reviewing the positive and negative aspects of full disclosure, we feel it is a sound policy for developing better, more honest communications about site selection among the participants.