Power plan meet in RB
By GEOFF JOHNSON -DN Staff Writer
05/22/2009 www.redbluffdailynews.com/rds_home/ci_12428571?IADID <http://www.redbluffdailynews.com/rds_home/ci_12428571?IADID>
Following a crowded, 350-person meeting in Cottonwood, Red Bluff is set to hold its own public meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Red Bluff Community and Senior Center regarding the Transmission Agency of Northern California's plan to build a 600-mile transmission line through Tehama County and much of the north state.
Until Tuesday, TANC had a comment period that was scheduled to close May 31, but a vote by the TANC commission has instead extended the comment period for another 60 days, said Redding Electric Utility Director and commission member Paul Hauser.
Though the three routes TANC is considering for its transmission project run through a number of private properties, the maps TANC has submitted are preliminary and not intended to represent the final design, which will make accommodations for individual landowners.
"You're not going to have transmission lines passing over homes or schools, so there's a great deal that has to be done to alter those routes," Hauser said.
Hauser was unable to specify just how close TANC can erect a transmission line to an existing property, but said TANC will be willing to negotiate with property owners and offer them compensation. He did not rule out the possibility of using eminent domain to obtain public land but said it was an undesirable method.
Putting the transmission lines underground would be too expensive for a project of this scale, he said.
TANC, a group of 15 agencies including the city of Redding and the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District, has been criticized for holding just 12 public scoping meetings across the state to discuss its proposed transmission project, though California requires just one such meeting per project.
During the May 14 meeting in Cottonwood, citizens complained TANC only notified them about the project through a letter that could be mistaken for junk mail and was giving them too little time to respond to the proposed project.
For more information on the TANC transmission project, or to submit comments on the project, visit www.wapa.gov/transmission/ttp.htm <http://www.wapa.gov/transmission/ttp.htm> or www.tanc.us <http://www.tanc.us/> or call 916-353-4777.
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Power struggle - Hundreds protest power line project
By GEOFF JOHNSON -DN Staff Writer
05/16/2009 www.redbluffdailynews.com/rds_home/ci_12385605 <http://www.redbluffdailynews.com/rds_home/ci_12385605>
Nearly 350 people attended a meeting Thursday in Cottonwood regarding the Transmission Agency of Northern California's proposal to build 600 miles of power lines across the state.
Steve Kerns, a biologist who helps develop environmental impact reports for wildland resource managers, spoke to a gymnasium so full that some were forced to stand or sit on the floor.
Like many in the audience, Kerns learned through certified mail that TANC plans to build a power line on his property, where his family has lived for three generations.
Whether they can do so through eminent domain or if they must negotiate for the property is still unclear, he said.
Those impacted by the project have until May 31 [extended to July 30 -lk] to submit comments regarding the public scoping process or risk not being allowed to comment.
"If you do not get your input in by the end of the month, you will have no legal standing," Kerns said.
Kerns called for the 6,800 property owners the TANC transmission project could impact to demand a $100-per-acre trespassing fee from the agency before it sets foot on any private land.
He also encouraged the audience to think of specific ways the installation of power line towers as large as 2,000 square feet could affect them, and to submit as many of these to TANC as they can. In preparing an EIR, a company will address common complaints with a general statement, and the more specific the issue the more complicated it becomes to deal with, Kerns said.
In Kerns' experience, biologists and analysts are contacted before the public scoping process begins. He has yet to see evidence the agency's suggested routes are based on on-site research nor has he been contacted by anyone conducting on-site research in his area, he said.
Kerns finds the plans to build power lines without existing power plants to connect to suspicious. TANC documentation suggests the project will connect to clean power plants, including ones that use geothermal energy.
But in seven years of research, Kerns has found installing a geothermal project where TANC proposes would be impractical because of cultural and environmental issues, he said.
Also speaking was Lisa Goza, whose Round Mountain community was one of the first to rally against the project and has since created the Web site stoptanc.com. Goza said TANC has admitted in public meetings that the project may be tied to coal.
TANC has already approached Goza about buying her property, which she said she has no intention of selling.
The offer not only angered Goza, but it could be illegal to have offered to purchase her property so early in the process.
Even if TANC is unable to absorb and develop on occupied properties, those same properties could become worthless as their vistas are marred by massive towers and transmitters. According to Goza, TANC admitted at one of its public meetings that it could have lines as close as 30 feet to an existing property.
TANC's proposal is something that must be disclosed to Realtors, Shasta County Supervisor Les Baugh said.
That makes for especially troubling news to Bowman Road resident Jim Glover. The electrician owns his own business, but as North State unemployment rises, Glover was considering selling and moving out of the property he's been on for 25 years.
Now that TANC's graphs show his entire house and surrounding property would be impacted by a power line, that may be impossible.
Public outcry has grown large enough that the boards of supervisors in both Tehama and Shasta counties have drafted letters to TANC asking for additional public meetings.
Baugh has taken it upon himself to go even further, sending letters to residents that warn about the project in case they have not received notification from TANC - even though the city of Redding has a 2 percent stake in the project.
"If there's any person in this room that has a doubt this is real, and that there's a possibility that your home may be purchased, or that a forced purchase is possible, you need to think again, because it is very real, absolutely very real," Baugh said.
Headlining the meeting along with Goza and Kerns, Baugh told the audience to write to TANC, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which has a 30 percent share in the project and as many other agencies as they could. Families should write individual letters instead of signing multiple names to one letter, he said.
Though they are not directly responsible for the actions of TANC, Baugh encouraged the audience to write to their legislators as well.
"I guarantee you if within the next few days, they receive another 300 or 400 letters, (if) you spread this to your neighbors, than you're going to generate a response from your local elected and your federal elected and your state elected officials," Baugh said.
Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, had a staff member at Thursday's meeting.
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Guest View: Monster project cloaked in green clothing
By Sandra Hayes
05/18/2009 www.redbluffdailynews.com/rds_home/ci_12395249 <http://www.redbluffdailynews.com/rds_home/ci_12395249>
The Transmission Agency of Northern California (TANC) and Western Area Power Administration are planning a 500 kV transmission line and power substations to emanate from the Ravendale area of Northern California, traveling through the North State to points south.
The purported reason for this endeavor is to supply green energy to Central and Southern California.
As a resident the Tehama County, a tax payer and a person concerned not only with the environment but also the economic well being and health of people, I have grave misgivings about this project. A project that will cause irreparable financial harm to the people of the North State. A project that is wrought with irony in its very purpose versus its impact.
The only real green in this project is the money that will line the pockets of the contractors who will construct the towers and install the lines. The hundreds of tons of natural resources used for the building materials needed and the destruction to the land are certainly not green endeavors.
The installation of these lines will ruin our property values. In fact, as a Realtor, I am bound by fiduciary duty to disclose that this project is planned and, therefore, property values are already negatively affected. These lines running through our properties or right adjacent to them will not only ruin the economic value, but they will also destroy enjoyment and use of what we have worked so hard to obtain, improve and maintain for our families. We will endure all this loss and yet not one watt of power will be delivered to us from it.
At the scoping meeting held by TANC, representatives of TANC told us that there was no power plant planned at this point for the area from which the lines will begin. They were very frank that this is a "build it and they will come" proposition. The selling point of this entire project is the green energy concept wind and geothermal specifically in this case. According the large contingent of residents from that area, there is neither the wind nor the geothermal capacity there to generate the power for these lines. The irony, of course, is that these green transmission lines from nowhere will have a huge negative environmental impact on the miles and miles and miles of land.
Properties will be uninhabitable, views will be blighted, cluster health effects to residents living near and under the lines will appear. The costs to plan, construct, buy out eminent domain properties, etc, are not something this state or our country can afford. Remember the slogan from the 1960s think globally, act locally? I believe the most effective use of public funds and the lowest impact generation of green energy will come from local projects that serve the communities in need. Local solar and wind projects are much more environmentally sane and financially sound than creating this enormous infrastructure that does not even have a power source guaranteed.
I urge other citizens to write the governor, the California Energy Commission, and their state and federal representatives and voice their opposition to this wasteful, destructive monster of a project cloaked in green clothing.
Sandra Hayes is a real estate broker living in Red Bluff.
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PUBLIC COMMENTS: Comments on the project may be submitted in writing to David Young, NEPA Document Manager, Western Area Power Administration, Sierra Nevada Region, 114 Parkshore Drive, Folsom, CA, 95630; by fax at 916-353-4772; or by e-mail to: ttpeis@wapa.gov <mailto:ttpeis@wapa.gov> . The deadline for comments has been extended to July 30.