Home Care In Canyon, CA

A housing developer scored a win in a years-long battle over a lease for 2,400 acres of undeveloped coastal hills near the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.

But that doesn’t mean homes will be coming to the scenic property behind Avila Beach.

On Monday, Division 6 of the Second District Court of Appeal ruled that the real estate development company HomeFed Corp. does, in fact, own the rights to a 99-year lease on the Wild Cherry Canyon property that could potentially allow building there even though the company has for decades only grazed cattle on the rolling, ocean-view hills.

Wild Cherry Canyon is the southernmost parcel of the Diablo Canyon lands owned by Euerka Energy, a subsidiary of PG&E.

In 2023, a trial court ruled that the lease only lasted 51 years, because the property was used for agricultural purposes due to the cattle grazing. California law limits agricultural leases to 51 years.

The appellate court, however, said the lease allowed for both agricultural and non-agricultural purposes — so the 51-year lease limit didn’t apply to the Wild Cherry Canyon property.

Eureka Energy could appeal the decision to the California Supreme Court, but it had not announced plans to do so as of Friday.

PG&E declined to comment on the ruling, and HomeFed did not respond to The Tribune’s request for comment.

Court says Wild Cherry Canyon lease lasts 99 years

In August 2018, HomeFed applied to Eureka Energy to extend its lease by another 99 years. At the time, HomeFed expected its 1968 lease to expire in 2067, with the option to extend the lease another 99 years to 2166.

HomeFed wants to extend the lease to preserve its ability to possibly build there one day.

Eureka Energy, however, declined the request, and said the lease actually expired in 2019 because the land was used for agricultural purposes. PG&E is worried about development coming too close to Diablo Canyon.

In 2019, HomeFed then sued PG&E over the terms of the lease.

In May 2023, San Luis Obispo Superior Court Judge Rita Federman ruled that HomeFed’s lease for Wild Cherry Canyon expired in 2019, because in her opinion, the property was leased primarily for agricultural purposes.

HomeFed and its subsidiaries then appealed the trial court’s decision.

On Monday, Division 6 of the Second District Court of Appeal reversed Federman’s decision, which means HomeFed gets to keep its lease until 2067.

According to the court, cattle grazing can be considered an agricultural use under Section 717. But the lessees grazed only 111 cows for fire prevention on the 2,400-acre property, which the court determined was not enough cattle to be considered an agricultural use.

Additionally, the 1968 lease for the Wild Cherry Canyon property said the land could be used for “any lawful purpose,” which includes agricultural and non-agricultural uses.

“(The lease) does not ‘default’ to ‘agricultural’ even if it was historically used to graze cattle,” the court said.

Therefore, the lease is valid for the full 99 years. This means Pacho Limited Partnership and San Luis Partnership, owned by HomeFed, can continue to use the property until then.

“Plaintiffs should not suffer a $39 million forfeiture of their leasehold interest because of their efforts to suppress wildfires on the property,” the decision said.

Could HomeFed Corp. develop houses on the property?

The developer’s victory does not mean housing will be coming to the hills of Wild Cherry Canyon.

During the court trial, HomeFed witnesses presented plans to develop the property, which included the potential for a dude ranch, or even an “urban village” of 2,500 housing units, according to previous Tribune coverage.

But just because HomeFed has a right to lease the property, doesn’t mean it will be able to develop it.

If HomeFed wanted to build on the property, it would need to apply to the county for a land-use permit, county planning division manager Susan Strachan told The Tribune.

The county would only issue a land-use permit with the consent of the landowner, she said.

This means HomeFed could not develop the property without permission from Eureka Energy.

During the court trial, PG&E senior regulatory and environmental director Tom Jones said the utility company does not want to develop Wild Cherry Canyon because it’s so close to the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Development would make emergency planning difficult, he said.

PG&E has not since publicized if its intention with the land has changed. On Thursday, PG&E declined to answer questions about the case.

Meanwhile, the community and the California State Legislature have expressed interest in conserving the property.

In 2023, the California Natural Resources Agency released a plan that said Wild Cherry Canyon could be transferred to California State Parks when the power plant is decommissioned.

Then, in 2024, California lawmakers allocated $40 million of the state budget to the purchase and preservation of Wild Cherry Canyon.

The California State Coastal Conservancy will award the funding to an organization with experience managing land for conservation and public access, according to previous Tribune coverage.

California’s last-running nuclear plant barely escaped extinction in 2022. The cost of operating it has become a source of tension amid a worsening affordability crisis. And the state has a moratorium on new nuclear power.

Yet, the Diablo Canyon plant — in many ways a relic of yesteryear — is primed for a 20-year extension, coinciding with the age of AI. The reason is simple enough: the state needs electricity.

Tech giants are desperately searching for clean, round-the-clock power for their data centers. Electric vehicles and new factories are also adding strain to grids, as are increasingly intense heat waves that can send demand soaring.

PG&E Corp., the utility giant and Diablo Canyon’s operator, has already begun the process for the plant’s extension. The plant completed a US Nuclear Regulatory Commission review. The fate of its two licenses now rests with the California Coastal Commission — an agency PG&E has a fraught history with — and the state water board. Diablo Canyon will need to prove it can operate in a safe and cost-effective manner without taking a major toll on the local environment.

“My near-term hope is that Diablo will run its full 20-year renewed license,” says Maureen Zawalick, PG&E’s vice president of business and technical services. “So we are laser-focused on that mission.”

Diablo Canyon began operations in 1985, and parts of it are still stuck in time. In the control room, buttons and dials reign supreme over digital screens.

“Operators don’t like change,” says simulation engineer Brian Sawyer.

The plant also has an exact replica of the control room where reactor operators learn how to handle everything from earthquakes to terrorist attacks. Sawyer presses a button to simulate an earthquake, sending a rumble through the training room via a 30-inch subwoofer under the stairs as lights begin flashing. This type of training is so crucial to keeping the plant functioning that Diablo Canyon’s nuclear operators spend every fifth week — about 20% of their careers — running through these simulations.

That way, they’ll be ready if the Big One comes, Sawyer says. In the event of a large earthquake, the plant can shut down its two reactors in two seconds, he explains. Operators are also on guard against wildfires.

During a visit in early August, smoke from the Gifford Fire had Unit 2 running at a reduced output. Smoke can lower conductivity and cause arcing on power lines, so two of the three lines were de-energized as a precautionary measure, explains PG&E Senior Director Tom Jones.

Diablo Canyon’s reactors are entombed in concrete and sit in separate buildings adjacent to the structure that houses the turbines and generators for both of the plant’s reactors. That cavernous space is the size of two-and-a-half football fields and is accessible only after a lengthy screening process that includes passing through what’s colloquially called a “puffer machine,” which uses blasts of air to collect and analyze microscopic particles. Exiting the plant is just as involved, requiring a radiation scan.

These protocols are intended to keep the site secure and the 1,200 PG&E employees working there safe. They also help protect the 1,100 contractors brought in to refuel the reactors. All of these factors and more are considered in the relicensing process.

Nuclear reactors are staying online or being restarted, such as Three Mile Island, reflecting the industry’s changing fortunes. Utilities are racing to meet growing demand as tech companies agree to pay a premium for nuclear power. That will drive a 63% increase in US nuclear capacity by mid-century, according to Bloomberg Intelligence projections. While the trend buoys the idea that Diablo Canyon will be able to renew all its licenses, PG&E has yet to ink a data center deal. And there remain some important hurdles to renewal.

One is related to the water the plant needs to operate. Nuclear power plants are often built near large bodies of water used for cooling purposes. In Diablo Canyon’s case, the large body of water in question is the Pacific Ocean, and the plant withdraws 2 million gallons a minute or 2.5 billion gallons a day.

While PG&E says it expects to get these approvals in the first quarter of 2026, the California Coastal Commission has requested additional information from the utility, according to Joshua Smith, the agency’s public information officer. (The commission’s former senior scientist dubbed Diablo Canyon California’s largest marine predator because its intake system traps copious ocean larvae.)

“The Coastal Commission is dedicated to a thorough review of the coastal resource impacts of PG&E’s project. California prides itself on the protection of its marine environment, and this situation is no exception,” said Smith. “The commission believes a path forward is possible given the ongoing cooperation of the investor-owned utility.”

The plant witnessed tens of thousands of protestors and the largest number of arrests in the history of the anti-nuclear movement in the years leading up to its opening. The proposed Diablo Canyon extension is also facing resistance from critics of nuclear power. Chief among those concerns: radioactive waste.

Every operational cycle, the plant’s spent fuel is transferred to two stainless steel canisters surrounded by a foot of concrete, each of which is 350,000 pounds (159,000 kilograms) fully loaded. Altogether, the utility holds 70 spent fuel canisters onsite, stored above-ground next to the plant’s raw water reservoir. The canisters are strong and could withstand a locomotive charging at them at 20 miles per hour (32 kilometers per hour), Jones says.

Diablo Canyon’s operating costs are also a point of contention. When California legislators voted to keep the plant open in 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom authorized a $1.4 billion loan. At the time, the expectation was that PG&E would repay it using an anticipated federal loan or profits from operations from 2029 to 2030. But as much as $588 million of those funds are unlikely to come in, according to nonprofit outlet CalMatters.

Altogether, PG&E forecasts that the plant will cost $1.4 billion to run in 2026. The utility expects to make $935 million selling the plant’s power through California’s electricity market, leaving ratepayers on the hook for the remaining $410 million after incorporating fees.

PG&E maintains that there will be a net benefit for its ratepayers, after taking into account the excess energy it generates for the state to meet customer demand.

Even with the state’s moratorium on new nuclear power in California, PG&E’s Zawalick points out that the power plant’s original design has space for six units and 60 years of spent fuel.

“I would love to see more nuclear built in the US, including California,” she says.

California’s Red Rock Canyon State Park is perhaps one of the most underrated state parks to visit in SoCal. It’s located about 120 miles north of L.A. at the convergence of the Sierra Nevada and the El Paso Range, and is best known for its remarkable 300-foot sandstone cliffs that are striped with burnt-orange hues.

The striking rock formations contain fossils from dozens of different prehistoric plant and animal species, including sabertooth cats and three-toed horses. Generations of film crews have also used the 27,000-acre park as a backdrop for everything from Hollywood Westerns to alien landscapes.

Would you make a day trip to this hidden gem in the desert?

Archaeology and paleontology

The park is a treasure trove of archaeological and paleontological sites, packed with extensive evidence of prehistoric life and later Native American use.

Vast fossil beds contain North America’s most complete vertebrate fossil record from the Clarendonian age (12-8 million years ago), and paleontologists have uncovered evidence of numerous prehistoric plant and animal species. These include ancient horses, five species of camels, antelope, saber-tooth cats, rhinos, mastodons, rodents, and dogs, according to an online exhibit by UC Berkeley.

The Indigenous Kawaiisu people inhabited this area of California for thousands of years until European contact in the 18th and 19th centuries. Archaeological investigations have uncovered evidence of roasting pits, food remains, and stone tools from this time, as well as petroglyphs and pictographs.

The characteristic rock formations were situated along an essential Native American trade route for thousands of years, and were later used as a stop for gold mining and stagecoaches during the 1800s.

Film cameos

According to California State Parks, over 150 movies and shows have been filmed at Red Rock Canyon State Park. Some famous cameos include the dig site where Dr. Alan Grant and Dr. Ellie Sattler meet in Jurassic Park (1993), Camp Green Lake in Holes (2003), and Egypt’s Valley of the Kings in The Mummy (1932).

You can also look out for the unmistakable rocky scenery in Westerns like Westworld (1973), Gregory Peck’s The Big Country (1958), and Bonanza (1959-1973), as well as alien landscapes from Lost in Space (1965-68) and Battlestar Galactica (1978-79).

Visiting Red Rock Canyon State Park

Most visitors hike the Hagen Canyon Nature Trail and Red Cliffs Trail for up-close views of the park’s famous sandstone cliffs, but some also stay a few nights at the Ricardo Campground, where you can take advantage of the dark skies for a spot of stargazing. Visit in the spring for a chance to see colorful wildflower blooms, including the rare Red Rock poppy.

It takes about 2 hours to reach Red Rock Canyon State Park from Los Angeles via California State Route 14. There is a day-use fee of $6 per vehicle, and you can enjoy the park from sunrise to sunset.

Check out the Visitor Center in Cantil for interesting exhibits, maps, and information to help you make the most of your visit. The State Park website recommends that you follow desert safety precautions, bringing twice as much water as you think you’ll need, sunscreen, and layered clothing.