ADD MORE 'GREEN POWER' TO CAMPUSES, CARDENAS SAYS.

Byline: Lisa M. Sodders Staff Writer

City Councilman Tony Cardenas is stepping up efforts to get the Department of Water and Power to help the Los Angeles Unified School District include more alternative energy sources at the hundreds of schools it is building.

Cardenas will ask the council's Commerce, Energy and Natural Resources Committee today to encourage the DWP and the LAUSD - which are in a legal battle over energy rates - to sit down and work out ways of adding ``green power'' to campuses citywide.

``I support environmentally sound classrooms and hope to identify a way to come up with a creative solution to the problem that both the department and LAUSD face,'' he said. ``The school district is embarking on massive construction and there is a window of opportunity.''

The district plans to build more than 160 campuses under a $14 billion construction campaign. But it complains that its contract with the Department of Water and Power prevents it from using alternative energy sources and it is seeking to amend the agreement.

But in documents submitted to the council on Aug. 10, DWP General Manager Ron Deaton said there is no provision preventing the district from installing alternative energy sources. Deaton said the 1999 contract expired last year and was not renewed.

``If and when the LAUSD and the LADWP enter into a contractual agreement, the matter of current and future installations of distributed generation may be addressed.''

But Kevin Reed, the district's lawyer, said LAUSD considers the contract valid.

``L.A. Unified's position is that we absolutely renewed the contract in 2004, and we have been litigating with the DWP about the existence of the contract,'' Reed said. ``We would be very interested in working with DWP on changing that contract to allow for cooperation between our agencies on alternative energy.''

Lisa M. Sodders, [phone]

lisa.sodders(at)dailynews.com