Baker County's http://www.moveidahopower.com/ blog ran this story from the Herald in an attempt by Baker County Commissioner Fred Warner to form a joint working group with Idaho Power and other interested parties:
Warner: Power line a high priority
Written by MIKE FERGUSON
Baker City Herald February 27, 2009 12:55 pm
Baker County Commission Chair Fred Warner Jr. told members of the group Move Idaho Power Thursday he’s spending one-third of his time lately devoted to their cause.
That is, to convince the Boise-based utility to build its 500-kilovolt power transmission line along a county-preferred path, between the Interpretive Center and the Virtue Flat shooting range and avoiding agricultural lands and viewsheds in Baker Valley.
He’s enlisted some allies in the fight: county commissioners from Union, Malheur, Umatilla and Morrow counties — along with Baker County, the five Oregon counties through which the proposed transmission line would pass — have joined Warner to sign a letter to Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Roy Elicker to complain that the proposed project’s review process “does not provide an adequate opportunity to explore public versus private land routing issues.”
In addition, Warner wrote to Michael Grainey, director of the Oregon Department of Energy, that the county foresees “that we will definitely be placed in an adversarial role which will have extremely negative impacts on all entities involved,” including not being consulted in advance on potential routes and not having the money to “address the scientific data which is the basis for siting this project.”
Warner proposes forming a joint working group composed of representatives of the county, the BLM, Idaho Power Corp., and the Oregon Department of Energy — to be chaired by Baker County.
“In addition, the County requests adequate funding to conduct peer reviews of the outcomes of all . . . environmental impact documentation provided by the various entities,” Warner wrote. “Though we believe that this process may have some serious flaws, we are willing to coordinate with all affected entities to reach outcomes which are in the best interest of the citizens of Baker County and the needs of the nation for transmission capacity.”
Warner has arranged a five-county private meeting with BLM, the Department of Energy and Idaho Power Tuesday. That meeting will be followed by another private meeting with BLM officials that afternoon and then the Move Idaho Power community meeting beginning at 6:30 p.m. at the Baker County Extension Building, 2610 Grove St. . .
In a status report to Move Idaho Power, Warner wrote that the Oregon Public Utility Commission will determine whether the line is needed or not. The PUC will hold at least one hearing in Baker City and another in Ontario to help make that determination.
Then the Oregon Energy Facility Sighting Committee, known as EFSEC, will use 16 criteria to determine whether Idaho Power receives a license to build the transmission line. . .
You can read the entire article HERE.
We agree with Commissioner Warner that the present siting process does not "provide an adequate opportunity to explore public versus private land routing issues,” nor does it provide for a stakeholders' meeting at the beginning of the process. We applaud Commissioner Warner for addressing these oversights.
