Grant PUD explains power line options in Quincy

QUINCY — About 60 people roamed past displays and talked with Grant County PUD employees about a proposed power line.

The 230 kilovolt line would run between the Columbia substation, located west of the intersection of Palisades Road and state Route 28 in Douglas County, and the Rocky Ford substation, located near Neppel Road and state Route 17.

Jeff Shupe, the transmission and distribution engineering manager, said the driving forces behind the new transmission line are an increase in the amount of electricity the district now has access to and improving reliability.

“The need really is to deliver our hydro power from our projects into the county,” he said. “The district has relicensed our projects, so we have a larger share.”

The new line would also allow the district to complete a loop around the county, increasing the reliability of the system, Shupe said. After the blackout, which struck the East Coast in 2003, the federal government increased reliability requirements.

The project’s engineer Randall Kono said the PUD analyzed the possible routes during the first half of 2009.

“Obviously the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but you have a lot of topographical and geological challenges,” he said. “So we went through and analyzed impacts on farms and impacts on threatened and endangered animal species. We started looking at the cultural resources.”

The PUD identified three possible corridors.

The northern route, designated the “yellow” line, would travel north of Quincy and through southern Ephrata, covering 35.6 miles. There would be 24 public parcels and 232 private parcels within 500 feet of the line.

The middle route, designated the “blue” line, mostly travels down state Route 28 as well as county roads, covering 34.2 miles. It comes within 500 feet of 16 public parcels and 271 private parcels.

The southern route, designated the “red” line, travels mostly along Road 10 Northwest and Road 9 Northwest, covering 36.7 miles. It passes within 500 feet of 29 public parcels and 362 private parcels.

“Some of the alternatives parallel more county road than state highway. The yellow route parallels an existing transmission line,” Kono said. “It’d be either on the north side or the south side of the existing 115,000 volt transmission line.”

While the PUD plotted out three alternatives, many of the details about the project are still undecided, including what type of towers would be used, where the lines would be placed in the corridors and the total cost for the project.

“I’d like to emphasize these are strictly corridors we’ve identified. As far as structure locations, those are yet to be determined. That’s kind of the next phase of our planning process,” Kono said. “We want to hold a very open and transparent process.”

Faye Showalter lives on Road 12 Northwest along the proposed route for the blue line and she said she wants the yellow line.

“The further you could get up here where there’s nobody,” she said, pointing at the yellow line. “The other fellow said that’s federal land, so we own it, so you can have it. You can do that.”

Showalter said she retired to the Quincy area and she doesn’t want the towers near her property.

“This is going to be really hard to take if you come down here, through a bunch of people, coming to town where that comes off Yahoo!, I hate driving it … It’s just ugly and I moved out here because it was beautiful,” she said.

Jay Magnuson, who lives north of the yellow line, agreed the yellow line seemed like the only choice.

“It’s in sagebrush. That’s where the new line should go,” he said. “It’s out of the way. There’s fewer people it’s going to violate.”

Shirley Dreher, another person living on Road 12 Northwest, said she’d like to see the PUD move the yellow line further north and use it.

“Because it would be less obtrusive to many, many people and it’s property that would be easier to obtain than these other routes.”

Depending on the side of the street, the towers could go straight through her property.

“It would literally be in my yard,” she said. “We just bought our dream home and I don’t want to look at that,” she said.

The PUD will hold another open house from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on June 30 at the Grant County PUD building, located at 30 C St. S.W., in Ephrata.

Kono said after the Ephrata meeting the district plans to have the pictures and charts on their Web site. People will be able to enter their comments online.

The PUD expects to have a decision on the route by the end of the year.