Ephrata council ponders routes

EPHRATA — The Ephrata City Council heard a presentation about a Grant County PUD power line without offering their opinion on the route.

The PUD is building a 230 kilovolt transmission line stretching from the Columbia substation in Douglas County to the Rocky Ford substation, located near Neppel Road and state Route 17.

 After spending the first part of 2009 studying possible routes, the PUD identified three possible routes for the transmission line. The northern route, called the “yellow” line, would mostly run along Road 13 Northwest. The middle route, called the “blue” line, would mostly parallel state Route 28. The southern route, called the “red” line, follows Road 10 Northwest and Road 9 Northwest.

The district sent the city a letter because the yellow line could impact Oasis Park and the area near the wastewater treatment plant, Project Engineer Randall Kono said.

The PUD needs a way to transmit more electricity from the Columbia substation because of increase in the amount of power it is receiving from its dams, he said.

“This will be a primary connection to deliver PUD hydro power to Grant County. In addition to delivering power, this is also a benefit as far as increasing the reliability of the system,” he said.

Until the end of the year, the PUD plans to accept public input about the three proposed lines before it makes a decision. The project team is working on figuring out what permits they need.

“There’s not an alternative that is a win-win for both the environment and the public so we are going to go through a process of evaluating the social impacts, the economic impacts and the environmental impacts of the alternatives,” Kono said.

The PUD is looking at a few different structure types, he said. It would either be two-pole or one-pole structures to carry the line. The lowest the lines can be to the ground is 27 feet.

“A common misconception in the public is that we’re proposing to build big lattice towers,” he said. “On the yellow corridor it would predominately be two-pole galvanized steel poles … Through (agricultural) areas and developed areas, we’re proposing a single-pole steel.”

Kono told the council the location of the poles also needs to be determined.

Councilmember Ben Davis asked whether the PUD studied how much the line would cost.

“Right now we’re basing our cost estimates on the length of the alternatives. Our cost estimate is based on $1 million a mile, which is a very common industry practice for the phase of the project  that we’re in,” Kono said.

This would put the cost of the yellow line at $35.6 million. The blue line would be $34.2 million and the red line would be $36.7 million. Kono said these estimates can change.

“Within the next two months we’re putting together conceptual designs for all the alternatives and we’ll have a basis of estimate for each alternative,” he said.

Councilmember Heidi Schultheis asked if the district would still accept comments after the conceptual design phase was finished.

“All along the way, the public, not just the city council, but the public, will be able to provide input?” she asked.

Kono replied there were no plans on cutting off public comments soon.

“If anybody has any concerns we want to hear about it because we definitely want to address it in our environmental documentation,” he said. “We definitely want to cover all of our bases.”

Schultheis continued by asking whether there would be some give in where the pole would be placed if the yellow line was chosen.

“Is there some kind of room to give as we’re also reviewing the parks master plan, to try to work with the city to determine how it might also fit with what we’re trying to do as well?” she asked.

Kono replied there wouldn’t be a structure every 10 feet, saying if there’s a structure in Oasis Park now, there is likely to be another one next to it.

“Just because there’s a transmission line there doesn’t mean that the land underneath can’t be used,” he said. “There’s a lot of examples of parks existing with transmission lines.”

Schultheis asked whether it would be possible to have a portion of each line, so there would be a combination of the three possibilities.

“At this point in the process we are absolutely flexible,” Kono answered. “After we’ve looked at the social impacts, the environmental impacts and the economic impacts, we could end up with a hybrid of the yellow, blue and red. This is more or less a baseline to start by.”

City Administrator Wes Crago said there will be a discussion on the subject during the next city council meeting on Aug. 5.