Residents steam over plant

Residents of a condominium complex next to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian will ask the Newport Beach City Council Wednesday to make the hospital clean up a power plant they claim spews steam and vapor, blocking resident’s views of the ocean.

“Hoag has tried to paint us as being opposed to any sort of progress and that’s not true,” said Erik Thurnher, co-chairman of the community groups Friends of Sunset View Park and the Villa Balboa-Hoag Liaison Committee. “Hoag has essentially refused to do anything on the plant on a voluntary basis and we haven’t gotten anywhere in two years.”

The hospital wants permission to shift up to 225,000 square feet of building space from its lower campus, which stretches along West Coast Highway, to its upper campus bordering Newport Boulevard to build a new 300,000-square-foot tower there. Residents of the Villa Balboa condominium complex want Hoag to reduce emissions from a hospital cogeneration plant before the city approves the proposal. Now several other residents’ groups, including the West Newport Beach Assn., have joined Villa Balboa in asking Hoag to do something about the steam and vapor plume, Thurnher said.

The Newport Beach Planning Commission voted in March to approve Hoag’s proposal, but tossed in a recommendation that the city council make the hospital come up with a way to curb vapor and steam plumes from the plant.

Hoag officials have maintained that eliminating or reducing emissions from the plant would cost millions, make the plant less efficient, and spew more air pollution.

The plant uses natural gas to generate electricity, reducing the hospital’s need for outside sources of energy. In documents submitted to the city last week, Hoag officials outline a number of options for reducing steam and vapor from the plant, ranging in cost from $500,000 to more than $9 million.

“It’s really not a cost issue — it’s a functionality issue,” said Hoag spokeswoman Debra Legan. “We’re still continuing to look for other alternatives ... all the options we have undermine the system and what it is designed to do — we still want to have an efficient system.”

In a written statement to the city council, Hoag officials claim the plume is only visible in the mornings for a few days a year, typically during the winter, a claim residents dispute.

The residents also say loud, idling trucks at Hoag’s loading docks and mechanical equipment cause noise problems at Villa Balboa.

Hoag has proposed sound proofing some of the homes at Villa Balboa and building a 6-inch-thick plastic, insulation-filled sound wall that would be 18 to 14 feet high in most places as a response to noise complaints from Villa Balboa residents.

The council will have a public hearing 7 p.m. Wednesday on Hoag’s proposal.

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at [email protected].