Meeting set on power line plan

A public meeting regarding a proposed transmission line project will be held today in Maxwell.

Colusa County resident Marion Mathis said the 6 p.m. meeting at the Maxwell Inn will include presentations on nearly a dozen aspects of the project, including affected farm areas and potential environmental impacts.

“There also be writing tips given that will show people how to get their written comments in by the July 30 deadline,” Mathis said.

The meeting will be hosted by a newly formed opposition group dubbed The North State Landowners Committee. Mathis said the committee includes some potentially affected landowners from the Mid-Valley area.

Mathis said Transmission Agency of Northern California officials were not invited to today’s meeting. “We wanted a meeting to give us a chance to educate ourselves before we confront TANC directly,” Mathis said.

She said the purpose of the meeting is to give potentially affected landowners an opportunity to get information that should have been provided earlier this year.

“The scoping meetings they had didn’t give us that chance because no one knew anything about them,” Mathis said.

TANC officials have acknowleged problems with their public notification process, blaming an inaccurate property ownership database when notifications were made.

The Western Area Power Administration and TANC, a consortium of 15 public utilities, in February announced plans to build more than 600 miles of transmission lines stretching from Sacramento to Lassen County. The $1.5 billion project would carry up to 4,000 megawatts of renewable energy.

A 60-day extension of the public comment period was the second announced in the last  three months. Project officials agreed to the extension after receiving numerous complaints from Mid-Valley residents who claimed to have been left out of the planning process.

The TANC Transmission Project would add or replace up to 600 miles of wires and cable carrying 230 to 500 kilovolts. Of the proposed routes, one passes through Colusa County, two cross Glenn County and all three span Tehama County. The builders would acquire land through easements and only purchase properties where substations would be constructed.

Tehama County resident Lisa Nye worries the project’s central route would eliminate about half of her olive orchard and may run through the home she’s lived in for more than 20 years.

“They won’t specify exactly where the center line would run,” Nye said, “but, the record says it would run ‘a few feet off River Road,’ and Olive Highway – well, that’s our house.”

The California Energy Commission has estimated Lassen County could potentially generate anywhere between 2,000 to 4,000 megawatts of energy through wind, solar, geothermal and biomass resources. That’s enough to power between 1.5 million and 3 million homes.

The new project is in the final stages of the public scoping process, with a draft environmental impact statement expected next year. The transmission line would not go live until 2014 at the earliest.

Contact Rob Parsons at 934-6800 or rparsons@tcnpress.com.