Rocky Mountain Power Begins Public Process for 345kV Transmission Line

With a Community Working Group meeting in Cedar City on Monday October 19^th, Rocky Mountain Power (RMP) began the first step of the public involvement process to site a 345kV transmission line that will run from Sigurd in Sevier County to Red Butte near St. George.  This project will require an environmental impact statement and the Bureau of Land Management will be the lead agency in that effort.  Beaver County has applied for and received approval to participate in the review of the Environmental Impact Statement as a cooperating agency.  This will give the county a seat at the table to provide input on specific locations within Beaver County.  

The process to develop the Environmental Impact Statement provides an opportunity for public input into the process. Rocky Mountain Power has indicated they supplement that process with additional public involvement since routes for transmission lines involve so many communities. The first step of supplementing the public involvement process was forming Community Working Groups (CWG). A CWG consists of residents, political leaders and others from all counties affected by the project. Beaver County residents in the CWG include Commissioner Don Willden, County Zoning Administrator Craig Davis, Economic Development Director Rob Adams and landowner Robert Christiansen. As the project moves through the permitting process, additional meetings will be sponsored by the Bureau of Land Management and Rocky Mountain Power involving the public, landowners and participants of the CWG.

Over the next five years RMP is planning to construct more than 2,000 miles of new transmission lines as part of their Energy Gateway projects with a goal to have the major portions of those planned lines in service by 2012 to 2014.  All 2,000 miles will represent an investment greater than $6 billion.  To put this in perspective, when Mid-America Energy purchased Pacificorp, Rocky Mountain Power’s parent company a few years ago, the price was $8 billion.   The Sigurd to Red Butte line is one of the Energy Gateway projects and is scheduled for service in 2013

New transmission lines are necessary to improve system reliability and deliver generation sources such as coal, gas, wind, geothermal and solar.  The planning process for new generating capacity and transmission assets takes several years.  The process begins with forecasting load growth which is tied to job creation and population.  From that forecast, the company prepares an integrated resource plan that identifies potential overloads, potential generation sources and finally alternatives for satisfying those overloads with alternatives for both transmission and generation. 

The planning process for choosing the site of transmission lines is public.  The power company as well as the federal land agencies desires to have the benefit knowing and understanding public opinion concerning the project.  To obtain public opinion RMP organized the Community Working Group mentioned above and has also planned a series of meetings for the general public.  A meeting will be held in Beaver County when the Bureau of Land Management is ready to hold their Public Scoping meetings.  Everyone with an interest should plan to attend.

Rocky Mountain Power has identified three general alternatives for routing through Beaver County.  The farthest east of these would follow the general route of I-70 to Cove Fort then turn south running parallel to the USFS boundary to a point a few miles south of Beaver.  From there it would turn west running south of Greenville and the Minersville Reservoir and leave the county at a point south and west of Minersville.

The middle alternative also follows I-70 to Cove Fort but continues southwesterly roughly following the same route as existing lines from Cove Fort to Blundell Geothermal.  From Blundell, the line would continue in the same direction as the lines that currently exist from Blundell to the Milford Substation.  From Milford this alternative runs south and west parallel to the large power lines from IPP. 

The final and most westerly of the alternatives follows I-70 but rather than passing in to Beaver County at Cove Fort continues west in Millard County before turning south in the vicinity of the wind farm.  This alternative has two options at that point.  One option has the lines east of the First Wind project and the other on the west of it.

While most of these alternatives are in the same general area as existing transmission lines, the new lines must be a certain distance away to assure that a single event such as a fire or lightning strike cannot disrupt multiple different transmission routes.

The location of power transmission lines is frequently a controversial subject.  This is why those involved want to know public opinion.  Transmission lines can affect farming practices and can interfere with the view citizens are used to and hold dear.  But transmission lines are absolutely necessary to support the lifestyles and economic prosperity we all desire.  Beaver County’s dominance in the state’s renewable energy generation as well as our desire to develop a stronger economic base through every means are all dependent on a strong, robust transmission network in the county.