Panel Will Consider Detour For Power Lines
Pend Oreille County utility commissioners agreed to consider a detour for a new 65-mile-long high-voltage power line that critics say will spoil Pend Oreille River views.
Mark Cauchy, manager of customer and energy services for the utility district, said engineers probably will take two to three weeks to study the proposal. It calls for the 115-kilovolt transmission line to cross Koch Mountain and avoid a six-mile stretch of the river north of Newport, where most critics live.
County commissioners endorsed the proposed compromise Monday when about 45 power-line foes jammed into their hearing room. The county leaders urged critics to present the idea to utility district commissioners, who met Tuesday and agreed to take a closer look.
Disgruntled riverfront property owners accused county commissioners of breaching the public trust three years ago when they ignored state Ecology Department recommendations and failed to require any study of the project’s environmental effects.
Commissioners Karl McKenzie and Mike Hanson declined to reopen the issue, noting construction has started and much of the $22.5 million cost of the line already has been incurred.
Power-line opponents aren’t optimistic the utility district will accept their compromise because it was previously rejected. As recently as Monday, district Manager Larry Weis dismissed the idea on grounds it would simply give the district a different set of opponents.
Although the alternate route would cross a substantial amount of Forest Service land, it also could affect 15-20 private landowners.
“We didn’t come away with any false hopes,” said Helen Keane of the 12-member Herbs Beach Landowners Association, one of several groups opposing the power line on aesthetic and environmental grounds. “We know what they’re going to say.”
Opposition to the transmission line rekindled recently when workers placed pink ribbons to mark the 50-foot-wide railroad right-of-way the line will follow. Earlier criticism focused more on fears that electromagnetic radiation might cause health problems.
People saw the pink ribbons and started saying, “I didn’t know that’s what they meant,” said physician Peter Wier, another leader of the Herbs Beach group.
Residents fear a large amount of trees and bushes will be cleared, exposing the power line to view and destabilizing the river’s already much-eroded bank.
“These towers are going to be up to 100 feet tall,” Wier said. “I think it’s going to be a terrible visual impact.”
Weis said the utility district plans only “minimal” removal of vegetation, and the metal poles will blend with trees when they are allowed to rust.
Weis, who was out of town when utility commissioners met Tuesday, said the critics may hurt ratepayers by driving up the project cost. The power line is expected to prevent winter brownouts in Cusick and eventually save money by eliminating the high cost of using a Bonneville Power Administration line.
The new line would run from the district’s Box Canyon Dam hydroelectric plant, three miles north of Ione, to Newport.
Keane, chairman of the Pend Oreille County Democratic Central Committee, said the critics don’t want to stop or delay the project.
“We’ve done everything we can to bring this to their attention before going to court,” Keane said.
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