Many citizens of Payette County have been wondering why they have been left behind in the transmission line siting process. A recent article in the Argus may not be all that reassuring. . .
Idaho Power meets with Payette County Commissioners By Scott Ford
Argus Observer Thursday, February 19, 2009 11:13 AM PST
http://argusobserver.com/articles/2009/02/19/news/doc499da6252e1fe111389057.txt
PAYETTE — About 30 people attended Tuesday’s Payette County Commissioner meeting regarding a potential plan by Idaho Power to route a transmission line through the area.
The transmission line, dubbed the Hemingway to Boardman Transmission Project, will consist of a single circuit 500-kilovolt transmission line which will start at a proposed substation situated southwest of Boise (Hemingway) and end at a Boardman substation in Morrow County, Oregon.
Tuesday, Idaho Power representatives Mike Barrie and Mike Ybarguen spoke with commissioners Larry Church, Rudy Endrikat and Marc Shigeta and described for the local elected leaders the progress of these transmission line routes. Barrie stated the process of looking into possible transmission line routes is in the preliminary stage.
“We are looking at different routes to run this line,” Barrie said. “We have an updated map showing a proposed route and alternate routes, but they are just preliminary routes.”
Barrie said the maps, which were present at the meeting Tuesday, were already outdated because of new information Idaho Power received after the maps were printed.
“We are still in the process of evaluating routes. There are things out there we know about and cannot interfere with, but then there are things out there that we do not find out about until we physically see them in the field,” Barrie said. “It’s an on ongoing evaluation, and we are at least 2 1⁄2 years away from construction.”
Barrie said a lot of things come into play when determining the location of the lines. Constraints on federal lands have pushed some of the proposed line sites into the private sector, and, even then, Idaho Power is listening to the land owners’ concerns.
Barrie added, a crossing point into Idaho from Oregon still has to be determined, and Payette County, Owyhee County and Canyon County are all being looked at as viable objectives.
Church voiced a couple of concerns he said he has been hearing from Payette County residents to Barrie and Ybarguen. One of those concerns was the condemning of private land to run the transmission lines. Church asked where Idaho Power stood on that topic, and on the stories he has heard of 40 percent of private land owners securing permission to access land, and then Idaho Power using condemnation to acquire the remaining 60 percent of land needed.
Barrie said Idaho Power does have the right of way to acquisition power, but added the “60 percent of the lands being condemned” was not true.“We do have condemnation powers, but we do not use them. In fact, we have not used them in 32 years,” Berry said. “There has been three or four times in the past 22 years that condemnation papers have been filed, but we ended up negotiating. If we cannot come up with an agreement with the land owner, then we will just go around.” (This must apply to Idaho, since IPCo does not have condemnation right of way powers in Oregon unless it is given them by the Oregon PUC.)
He added that Idaho Power does not make it a practice to condemn lands for its needs. Instead, the company uses an independent appraiser to set a range of land values so Idaho Power has a place to begin negotiations.“Land owners are fairly compensated,” Barrie said. Another concern Church had was the size of the towers that will carry the lines. Barrie stated the towers will vary in size depending on location and terrain. Barrie added the towers south of Marsing are 500 kV towers, and the towers Idaho Power plans to use will look a lot like those.
“The average height of these towers will range from 125 feet to 150 feet,” Ybarguen said. “But the higher the tower, the longer the span and the less ground disturbance there will be.” If the line does come through Payette County, Barrie said there will be a 250-foot easement placed on the lines, 125 feet on either side. He added it would not interfere with farming or agriculture.
“We will not run these lines over homes or structures we will either go around them or move them if possible,” Barrie said. “We listen to all concerns, and we will look for the best way to go about it.”
