South Livermore by John Toeppen

Livermore California is home to many wineries. Wente's winery is one of the largest and you can see part this operation on the right hand side of this image. We are rightfully proud of the 43 wineries in our valley and the award wining wines that are produced here.

The fact that Hetch Hetchy power and water passes though our town was determined in 1923 and was worked out as a corrupt deal involving San Francisco and PG&E at the expense of our National Park, Yosemite. Later, PG&E ran additional power lines to the East bay and San Jose through our town. Now, another company, TANC, wants to run new wires through our valley. Please notice that we have enough wires, and that we are not benefiting from their presence. so we don't want any more. This panorama shows seven sets of high tension lines here already (count 'em)..

High voltage DC lines are now run underwater or underground and need not scar the landscpes anymore. San Francisco's Bay is well suited for running high voltage DC for the future Smart Grid right down to San Jose or Palo Alto. It is past time for America to wake up and invest in the future of power distribution and cease the use of eighty year old technologies, and to realize that the costs of impacts should not be shouldered by those who do not benefit from those services.