After roughly four months of input, the launch of several grassroots landowners organization and re-evaluation by planners at Idaho Power, a portion of the proposed route of the Boardman-to-Hemingway (B2H) 500-kilovolt (kV) transmission line has been relocated. Its planned date of initial operation has been backed up slightly, as well, to 2014. Initial project schedules had given a start date of June 2013.
The section, formerly plotted north of the existing PacifiCorp 500kV lines west and south of Homedale, has been rerouted south of the line, away from private property and onto the West Wide Energy Corridor (WWEC). The line as now proposed stays on public land to a far greater extent — in that section — than it did before. It has also been moved west of the heavily cultivated strip south of Adrian, and has relocated on Bureau of Land Management ground, only returning to cultivated land north of the city as it turns toward the proposed Sand Hollow substation.
The move was announced just days prior to the Planning and Zoning-requested public meeting held Feb. 24 at the Marsing American Legion Community Center. Approximately 60 interested landowners, activists and legislators attended the meeting. Land-use expert Fred Kelly Grant served as moderator.
At the meeting’s outset, Grant said that Nevada-based BLM director Lucas Lucero had confirmed that the newly plotted route is under National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) examination. Lucero heads the Environmental Impact Statement studies for B2H.
The meeting was well-attended by a spectrum of those concerned, including numerous landowners, District 23 state Sen. Bert Brackett (R-Rogerson) and Rep. Stephen Hartgen (R-Twin Falls), all three Owyhee County Commissioners, county planning and zoning commissioners, Owyhee Cattlemen’s Association president Bodie Clapier, South Board of Control manager Ron Kiester and director Dave Shenk, Stop Idaho Power president Roger Findley, Boise BLM district manager Aden Seidlitz and Owyhee BLM field office manager Buddy Green.
