Bruce Corn reports that Wednesday, Dec. 17th, Senator Ron Wyden made a surprise stop in Ontario. Jay Chamberlain of the Owyhee Irrigation District asked him about our transmission line problem, and he said he was behind us and would do whatever he could to help our efforts. Jay says the Irrigation District is a local government agency in standing, and that the Bureau of Reclamation must sign off on any transmission lines crossing canals.
Bruce also quoted Ron Kiester of the Owyhee Irrigation South Board as saying that if you're anywhere near headgates under transmission lines along the Homedale PP&L, during a storm, your hair will stand on end. At the transmission line scoping meeting in Marsing, only about ten people showed up, and they thought the line was going to be somewhere off in the desert. I hope they start reading this blog soon.
We sent a packet of documents and maps as requested, to Matt Lawrence, senior policy analyst to Oregon State Senator Ted Ferrioli. Senator Ferrioli plans on a town hall meeting in Ontario early next year, so be watching for it.
This from Pat Trenkel: ". . . (Stacy Captein) says she lived by the huge transmission lines in California. It doesn't happen often, according to her, but in 1988 or 1989 they experienced a power surge in the lines which blew out everyone's electrical equipment. The power company had to replace her coffee pot, TV, and computer monitor. It knocked things off the wall in the barn, and could have killed the cows, had they been milking. Apparently, a lot of people were impacted. I think once would be too many times...what would happen to a person who happened to be touching the wrong thing during a power surge?"
Good question.
