Valley Voice Newspaper

By Rick Elkins

Tulare County - While the proposed routes for Southern California Edison's high-power transmission lines have been grabbing most of the headlines in Tulare County, there is another battle looming over plans by Pacific, Gas & Electric to run new lines from the Tehachapis to east of Fresno.

Those lines could run along the foothills of eastern Tulare County or they could go west and run basically along Interstate 5 into Fresno County. The route will go into the Midway Substation in Buttonwillow and end in eastern Fresno County. It will tie into the Helms Project east of Fresno.

“No route has been selected,” stressed Jeff Smith, a PGE spokesman, Monday. “We're still exploring various different possibilities,” he added. He said there has not even been a decision whether to take the lines along the eastern foothills or the western foothills.

The Central California Clean Energy Transmission Project (C3ETP) is designed to increase transmission capacity between northern and southern California. Plans include the construction of a new 500 kV double circuit tower line from Kern County to a new substation east of Fresno. Smith said the lines will be used to transmit renewable energy – solar, wind and geothermal – to a growing Central Valley.

The project is part of PGE's effort to meet the state regulation that 20 percent of private utilities' power must come from renewable energy. The deadline to meet that regulation is 2010.

The towers would be similar to what Edison is proposing to bring more electricity into the county – roughly 220 feet tall and spreading out more than 40 feet.
Already, opposition is growing along the eastern foothills of Tulare and Fresno counties.

Cheryl Searle, who lives below Success Dam east of Porterville, is fearful the new lines will run right over her property. She has organized a public meeting at 6 p.m. on Aug. 28 at the Porterville Library Community Room to have representatives of PGE discuss the project. Homeowners within the proposed corridors are welcome to attend to discuss the project directly with PGE, she said.

“I'm against it. We have put our home up for sale and now we can't sell it,” she said of the plans that have basically made her property nearly impossible to sell. However, Smith said there is a lot of misinformation out there that is creating a lot of opposition to the project.

“Ultimately, it will go over somebody. Unfortunately there's a lot of hysteria by people putting out misinformation,” he said. “Some are saying PGE is coming to take your land by eminent domain and that's not correct.”

However, he understands the concerns. “It is understandable that people are going to raise concerns,” he said.

Searle said PGE crews have been out surveying her property, but Smith said that is the company doing “due diligence” in its process to locate the best route and those crews are not an indication that a route has been chosen.

Even the timetable of the project has been misrepresented, Smith said. PGE does not plan on filing any plans with the Public Utilities Commission until the spring of 2009 and it is not likely any decision will be made before late 2010.

One group vehemently opposed is the Save the Foothills Coalition. Based out Fresno County, it is a group of 150 citizens and land owners mainly opposed to PGE's plan for the substation. The group formed in September 2007 after PG&E sent out notices to approximately 2,500 people owning property along several possible routes of the transmission line project.

Tulare County Supervisor Mike Ennis says it is understandable that landowners are upset. “If I were a landowner, I would oppose this because they (PGE) don't serve us,” he said, explaining that PGE provides power to less than 20 percent of the county. He said he already has had several calls.

He said plans he has seen show the lines going over Lake Success and just in front of Lake Kaweah.

“They just want to mirror the Edison lines,” he said, but Smith said that is only one possibility.

“That's going to stir up a hornet's nest,” said Ennis of the plans.

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