Hoag and neighbors to square off

Newport residents who want Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian to clean up plumes of steam and vapor from a hospital power plant will face off with hospital officials tonight at a special city council meeting.

In a written statement to the city council, Hoag officials claim plumes from a hospital cogeneration plant are only visible in the mornings for a few days a year, typically during the winter — a claim residents dispute.

“It’s just a patently false statement, it’s misleading and not worthy of Hoag to say things like that,” said Erik Thurnher, co-chairman of the community groups Friends of Sunset View Park and the Villa Balboa-Hoag Liaison Committee. “I literally look at the plant every day and I see the plume every day.”

A firm hired by Hoag to analyze emissions from the plant from April 20 to June 24 last year found only 12 days during that period the plant produced “significant” emissions — but Thurnher claims the consultants measured the plume at the wrong time of year — since the steam and vapor is the most visible in the winter.

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.

“Any system that is installed to reduce the water vapor plume will negatively impact the energy efficiency of the plant,” according to documents Hoag officials submitted to the city last week.

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.

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 the plant before the city approves the proposal. The residents say smoggy-looking emissions from the plant block their views of the ocean.

Now several other residents’ groups, including the West Newport Beach Assn. and the Newport Crest homeowners association, have joined Villa Balboa in asking Hoag to do something about the steam and vapor plume. Several homeowners groups have sent letters in support of Villa Balboa residents to the city council.

The council will meet at 7 p.m. tonight in council chambers at Newport Beach City Hall, 3300 Newport Blvd.

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