Northern California oysterman wins temporary reprieve for family farm

Northern California oyster farmer Kevin Lunny won a temporary reprieve in federal court to allow him to keep his controversial business operating at least two more months.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency injunction, saying, in part, “There are serious legal questions and the balance of hardships tips sharply in the appellants’ favor.”

Lunny’s farm in Point Reyes National Seashore was to close Thursday, under terms of an agreement made 40 years ago between the owners and the federal government. Closing the farm would allow the National Park Service to create the first marine wilderness in the Lower 48 states.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar refused last year to grant Lunny’s request to extend the lease. Federal District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers then denied Lunny’s request for an injunction, saying she would not expect the case to succeed on its merits.

Responding to the higher court's decision, Lunny said in a statement, “We are beyond thrilled that our business will now remain open while we continue to fight the decisions from the court and Secretary Salazar that have put our business at risk.”

Lunny’s lease from the federal government expires Thursday and he was to leave by March 15. Closure will now be delayed at least until May 13, when a court hearing is scheduled in San Francisco.

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Photo: Jorge Mata carries strings of oysters up a plankway at Point Reyes National Seashore in 2009. Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

San Onofre: Edison ordered to show costs for replacing generators

In response to a complaint filed by a former San Diego city attorney, an administrative judge with the California Public Utilities Commission has ordered Southern California Edison to file an accounting of its costs to replace steam generators at the San Onofre nuclear plant by March 15.

The commission did not agree to immediately stop collecting funds from ratepayers for the project, however.

Issues with the replacement steam generators -- installed in 2010 and 2011 -- led to a shutdown of the plant that has now stretched on for more than a year. The utilities commission launched an investigation in October into the costs of the outage, which could eventually lead to money being refunded to customers.

The commission authorized Edison and SDG&E in 2005 to spend up to $782 million in ratepayer funds on the replacement project but agreed to review whether any costs exceeding $671 million were reasonable once Edison submitted its final project costs, which the company has not yet done.

In filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the companies reported having spent $774 million as of Sept. 30.

In the meantime, Edison received permission from the PUC to include costs of the steam generators on bills in 2011 and 2012 of $56.7 million and $115.2 million, respectively. A request to recover costs in 2013 is pending.

The commission currently looking at the plant's 2012 costs is in the first phase of the investigation, slated to extend until July. It had planned to look at the costs of the steam generator replacement as part of a later phase. 

Forrmer San Diego City Atty. Michael Aguirre, representing client Ruth Henricks, asked that the timetable be moved up and that the commission stop collecting money from the ratepayers for the steam generator replacement and refund the money collected already.

The administrative law judge's ruling declined to take those steps but did set a binding date for Edison to file the application.

In their words: L.A. mayor candidates answer The Times' questions

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck has a good chance of keeping his job if any of the three most prominent candidates for mayor manages to win. But embattled Fire Chief Brian Cummings? Not so much.

When The Times posed a series of questions about major issues facing Los Angeles, those were among the views expressed by the eight candidates to replace termed-out Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. In late January, the candidates were given several days to mull what they would say before emailing comments back to the newspaper.

Their answers appear in full on The Times' "Where they stand" page. Readers will find that some are clear and emphatic, and some are carefully hedged. A couple of candidates left questions unanswered. But in a race where the competitors are scrambling to break away from the pack, voters can find a few revealing contrasts.

WHERE THEY STAND: Los Angeles mayoral candidates in their own words

After years of historically low crime rates, City Hall veterans Eric Garcetti, Wendy Greuel and Jan Perry say they would like to see Police Chief Beck serve a second term. Former talk-show host Kevin James flatly says “no,” without explaining why. (In answering another question about public safety, James, the only Republican in the race, takes issue with Beck’s decision to stop impounding the cars of unlicensed drivers, many of whom are illegal immigrants.)

Candidate Emanual Pleitez says he wants to talk with Beck before making any commitment. And Norton Sandler -- a member of the Socialist Workers Party -- advocates abolishing the LAPD altogether, calling it “an instrument of capitalist rule.”

Fire Chief Cummings, meanwhile, draws support only from Councilwoman Perry. She says Cummings “has been straightforward in his dealings with the city, and is doing a great job.” Garcetti, also a council member, and Greuel, the city controller, are less inclined to support the fire chief. Both cite the controversy surrounding his department’s failures to keep accurate emergency response-time data: “I believe confidence needs to be restored in the Fire Department’s management,” Garcetti says.

L.A. ELECTIONS 2013: Sign up for our email newsletter

Other highlights:

Should we keep building a so-called subway to the sea? The candidates deliver an almost unanimous yes.

San Onofre customers complain about shut down nuclear plant

Dozens of residents weighed in Thursday on whether either of the troubled units at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station should be fired up and to what extent ratepayers should foot the bills racked up since the power station was taken offline.

The facility, one of two nuclear power plants in the state, has been closed for more than a year because of unusual degradation of steam generator tubes carrying radioactive water.

The commission launched an investigation in October into the costs of the outage at San Onofre, which could eventually result in some rates being refunded to customers of Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

That investigation, however, may not be completed until 2014, though a decision could be made on the first phase, which will examine the plant’s 2012 costs, in July. The commission will look at the costs of the faulty replacement steam generators that prompted the plant’s shutdown at a later phase in the investigation.

The California Public Utilities Commission hearing in Costa Mesa, which stretched over three hours and was to resume later Thursday, was aimed at letting the public weigh in on what the commission called Edison’s “operational and financial response” to the San Onofre outages.

The commission is also planning a second set of hearings in San Diego County, but dates haven’t yet been set. Comments from the hearings, a news release said, will be filed as part of official investigation records.

Neon green signs reading, “Cut our losses. Not a penny more to Edison,” bobbed in the audience as speakers demanded that Edison decommission the station south of San Clemente and refund money collected for costs related to the outages.

“Customers should not be paying a dime for a nonfunctioning nuclear plant,” said Mindy Spatt, a spokeswoman on behalf of the ratepayer advocacy nonprofit, The Utility Reform Network.

Grace Van Thillo, 68, of San Clemente, suggested that the more than $1 billion collected for the plant be put toward a “decommissioning fund” and to increase long-term power grid reliability.

Public to speak out on $664-million Millennium Hollywood plan

The Los Angeles Planning Department will hear public comments starting at 9 a.m. Tuesday about a controversial, multimillion-dollar development planned near the Capitol Records Tower at Hollywood and Vine.

The owners of the Capitol Records building have plans for two skyscrapers and a cluster of smaller buildings, about 1 million square feet in total. The complex of apartments, offices and shops would surround the famous cylindrical building that resembles a stack of vinyl records.

The developers want to change the zoning code. The Planning Department will also consider adopting the city’s environmental and traffic report about the project.

Proponents of the $664-million Millennium Hollywood project, including developers Millennium Partners and Argent Ventures, say the construction would be a boon to the area. The project is the most ambitious to date in a series of revitalization projects in Hollywood. Other major projects included the completion of the Hollywood and Highland Center in 2001 and the opening of the W Hotel at Hollywood and Vine in 2010.

The skyscrapers would be more than three times taller than most buildings in the area, according to a report on environmental and traffic impact written by the city.

The buildings would block views of the Hollywood sign and Capitol Records building, create light pollution and generation construction dust, opponents said. Others fear that the neighborhood will lose its character.

Angeles National Forest roads to close amid snow, ice

With a storm on the way, Los Angeles County officials warned of likely closures on roads leading into the Angeles National Forest shortly after midnight Monday.

The L.A. County Public Works Department said that based on the forecast of snow and icy road conditions, it would close the following roads at 3 a.m. Tuesday:

-- Angeles Forest Highway from Aliso Canyon Road to Angeles Crest Highway

-- Big Tujunga Canyon Road from Angeles Forest Highway to Vogel Flats

-- Upper Big Tujunga Canyon Road from Angeles Forest Highway to Angeles Crest Highway

The National Weather Service is predicting a cold, windy storm will reach Southern California early Tuesday morning, bringing rain to much of the Southland and snow to the mountains.

The snow level is expected to begin at 4,500 feet and drop to 2,000 feet, according to the weather service. On Friday, the forecast had called for a foot of snow. On Sunday night, the forecast suggested the accumulation may be far less: 4 to 8 inches. 

Once the roads are closed, county officials warn, local access will not be permitted. The closures are to remain in effect until the storm system has passed and the roads have been inspected.

For more information and updates, area residents and motorists can visit the county’s website.

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L.A. protesters join campaign against Keystone oil pipeline

Hundreds of protesters marched on Los Angeles City Hall on Sunday as part of a nationwide demonstration designed to pressure President Obama into rejecting a Canadian pipeline that would bring oil into the United States.

The local demonstration -- led by environmentalist and actor Ed Begley Jr., Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) and L.A. Councilman Jose Huizar -- was focused on rejecting TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline as a first step in taking action on climate change.

“We’ve seen climate change coming for a long time, but now it’s here, and it’s getting worse faster and causing greater harm than we ever expected,” Waxman said. “There is simply no more important fight for the future of our children and grandchildren.”

A coalition of 90 groups, led by Tar Sands Action Southern California and the Sierra Club, organized the march to coincide with a larger group of demonstrators who converged on the White House.

“You cannot occupy the White House, but you can surround it,” said Bill McKibben, an environmental writer who founded 350.org, whose name alludes to keeping greenhouse gases at less than 350 parts per million. That’s the level scientists believe to be a dangerous tipping point for the planet.

McKibben and hundreds of others have been arrested in protesting the pipeline, which would carry what he considers some of the “dirtiest oil on the planet.” The oil from Alberta, Canada’s tar sand deposits is bitumen, which is heavier, more viscous and contains more impurities, and thus takes more energy to extract and process.

The demonstrations and arrests are beginning to emerge as the largest green civil disobedience campaign in a generation. The target, for the moment, is the proposed construction of the 1,600-mile Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta to U.S. refineries that ring the Gulf of Mexico.

Locally, clean energy supporters also rallied behind a recent initiative by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to wean itself from two out-of-state coal plants that now supply nearly 40% of the city’s electricity.

“That will help reduce our city’s climate change pollution footprint,” said Aura Vasquez of the Sierra Club. “But the time has come for the federal government to take strong action too, before it’s too late and global warming spirals out of control.”

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Russian meteor: Could there be an early warning system?

If a meteor was heading toward California, would residents have any warning?

It all depends on the size of the space rock and the time of day.

At night, astronomers can see an object hurtling toward Earth through a telescope. During the day, it’s nearly impossible.

A meteor lit up the sky in Russia Friday morning for 30 seconds before breaking apart about 15 miles above Earth. NASA estimates that it weighed about 10,000 tons and was 55 feet in diameter, making it the largest space rock to enter the planet’s atmosphere since a 1908 incident in Tunguska, Siberia.

The meteor released an estimated 500 kilotons of energy, creating a blast that broke windows and left hundreds of people with injuries. No one saw it coming.

“It’s hard to find small objects in the daylight until they get closer,” said Paul Chodas, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, during a teleconference on Friday. “An asteroid needs to be found against a dark sky.”

Caltech astronomer Mike Brown said a region might have one to two hours of warning if a meteor was detected at night.

But with astronomers already monitoring hundreds of other celestial objects, it might be a difficult task.

“You would have to look everywhere,” Brown said.

Edison manipulated costs at San Onofre, complaint alleges

An advocacy group filed a complaint Wednesday with the California Public Utilities Commission alleging that Southern California Edison manipulated inflation calculations to recover more money from ratepayers for defective replacement steam generators at the San Onofre nuclear plant.

The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility complaint alleges that Edison violated federal securities law by misrepresenting the authorized inflation adjustment by as much as $100 million in filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and might have overbilled customers using the inflated figures.

John Geesman, an attorney for the alliance, characterized the alleged actions as "plain old-fashioned financial chicanery."

Unusual degradation of tubes in the new steam generators, installed in 2010 and 2011, led to a small leak of radioactive steam in January 2012 and prompted the plant's shutdown.

The public utilities commission is already investigating the costs of the outage and may eventually order Edison, which operates the plant, and San Diego Gas & Electric, which owns a 20% share in the facility, to refund money to ratepayers. PUC spokeswoman Terrie Prosper said the commission will be looking at the costs of the steam generators as part of a later phase of that investigation.

The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility asked the commission to call for court action by the California attorney general's office under the state's false claims act. Under that law, any government entity that is found to have been overbilled could recover triple the amount.

The PUC authorized Edison and SDG&E in 2005 to spend up to $782 million in ratepayer funds on the replacement project, but agreed to review whether any costs exceeding $671 million were reasonable.

The commission did not specify an inflation adjustment at the time. That was to be determined when Edison submitted its final accounting of project costs and applied to include the costs permanently in rates.

The company has not yet filed that application but is expected to do so in March. In the meantime, Edison received permission from the PUC to include costs of the steam generators on bills in 2011 and 2012 of $56.7 million and $115.2 million, respectively. A request to recover costs in 2013 is pending.

San Onofre design issues probed by regulatory commission

The head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Friday that the agency's office of investigations is probing the  "completeness and accuracy" of information Southern California Edison has given the agency about equipment at its troubled San Onofre nuclear plant.

NRC Chairwoman Allison Macfarlane wrote to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) that the agency had launched an "expansive investigation" on Sept. 28, 2012, into information Edison gave the agency about the plant's steam generators. The investigation is ongoing.

Macfarlane was responding to a letter sent Wednesday by Boxer and U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) after they obtained a leaked version of a non-public Mitsubishi report on the cause of problems with the steam generators.

The lawmakers said the report showed that when designing the replacement steam generators, Edison and Mitsubishi had rejected safety modifications in order to avoid triggering a lengthy NRC license amendment process.

The plant has suffered from unusual degradation of steam generator tubes, which resulted in a small leak of radioactive steam more than a year ago and prompted the plant's shutdown.

The NRC, the lawmakers and Mitsubishi have declined to release the full Mitsubishi report, saying it contains proprietary information.

Markey said Friday in an email that the report showed a team formed by Edison and Mitsubishi when designing the replacement steam generators had identified some conditions that made the system particularly vulnerable to tube wear, but rejected design changes that could have mitigated the problem. The team, formed early in the design process, was focused on the design of anti-vibration bars.

A source familiar with the document who was not authorized to speak on the record said the team was apparently formed as part of the normal early-design process, to minimize potential problems with tube vibration and wear, not because the companies had a specific concern at the time.