It was bound to happen sooner or later.
For Idaho Power, crying "mea culpa" (what a wishful thought that is) to Idaho cities is preferable to informing anyone in advance that high voltage transmission lines belong on customers' private property rather than through designated public lands utility corridors.
To offer apologies at this late date is offensive. Bringing in the same public involvement outfit that guided an earlier advisory committee for recommendations Idaho Power conveniently overlooked (especially when it came to Malheur County), in order to gather up more oblivious citizens for more ignored recommendations, is an affront to rational sensibility.
At least the Idaho Statesman is reporting the same Idaho Power company talking points we've been hearing for quite awhile. See if you can spot them in the following article:
Idaho Power offers mea culpa to Idaho cities
There is still time to address the concerns of Kuna and Parma residents over massive power line projects.
BY JOE ESTRELLA Published: 04/04/09
http://www.idahostatesman.com/eyepiece/story/720955.html
The utility "dropped the ball" when it came to communicating its intentions to communities that would sit in the path of the Gateway West Transmission Line Project, said Douglas J. Dockter, Idaho Power's engineering manager for the project. "We didn't get them involved in the process as soon as we should have," Dockter said.
(Compare the above quote to a similar one in the Idaho Statesman editorial Feb. 27 http://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/story/681437.html?mi_pluck_action=comment_submitted&qwxq=7956150#Comments_Container )
The Gateway project is a joint venture between Idaho Power and Rocky Mountain Power, a division of PacifiCorp. The partnership plans to build 1,150 miles of transmission line from a substation near Casper, Wyo., to the Hemingway substation outside of Melba. The 500,000-volt lines running through Idaho would ease the strain on a system that is at capacity, Dockter said.
The additional power also could be used to lure new manufacturing companies that might bypass the state because Idaho Power can't meet its energy demands. Construction could begin in the spring of 2011, with the most important segments coming online in 2014.
Dockter estimated the cost of line construction at $1.5 million per mile, not counting the cost of constructing substations or negotiating rights-of-way agreements. Idaho Power executives will sit down with Kuna city officials Wednesday to address their fears that massive power line towers will go through city limits, potentially killing a mixed-use development and affecting the city's growth.
The utility also must convince Parma officials that a related project, which originates near Boardman, Ore., and travels south to the Hemingway substation near Melba, will not pass through Parma exclusively on private land.
Mayor Margaret Watson said that would degrade the value of the landowner's holdings and make it impossible to develop. In the case of Parma, Dockter said, a citizens advisory committee is being created to determine exactly where the transmission lines will be strung. (See my last blog post about this.)
Dockter said the proposal for the Gateway project that shows the transmission lines going through Kuna was drafted before that area was annexed into the city. He said the proposal was a starting point that needed to be submitted so the U.S. Bureau of Land Management can decide whether it will allow any part of the project to be built on federal land, a process that could take until 2011.
"So there is time to include the cities in this process," Dockter said. "For an engineer, the best solution is a straight line because it costs less. But we knew from the beginning that the final project was not going to look like our original proposal."
During Wednesday's meeting, Idaho Power will discuss alternatives to running the transmission lines through Kuna, including the possibility of skirting the city, and using smaller transmission towers or even single poles similar to those on the east side of Eagle Road to limit aesthetic damage. (Hey, how come nobody says that to us in Oregon?)
. . . Dockter said the joint venture with Rocky Mountain Power, or Idaho Power's Boardman-to-Hemingway project, cannot begin acquiring rights of way until the BLM makes its decision about whether it will allow its land to be used. . .
I hear farmers in Burley are finding out their irrigated property is now an Idaho Power right-of-way. Just wait until the rest of the Treasure Valley loop finds out about Idaho Power dropping the ball all over them .
