Rocky Mountain Power at loggerheads with local officials over transmission line project

Rocky Mountain Power will not make major modifications to proposed routes for a high-voltage power line project in Tooele Valley despite widespread objections from local residents and elected leaders.

“We deeply regret we were unsuccessful at finding any solutions meeting the company’s siting criteria that garnered any more public support than the originally proposed routes analyzed in the draft EIS [environmental impact statement],” said Rod Fisher, community relations director with Rocky Mountain Power, in explaining the company’s decision to stick with the routes it initially proposed.

But Tooele resident Kaye Pratt, who helped spearhead a citizens group opposed to power lines along the city’s east bench, said the company is simply ignoring reasonable compromise routes agreed to by the Tooele County Commission, the mayors of Tooele and Grantsville, the Tooele City Council, and citizen groups.

“Tooele County is in agreement,” she said. “It is Rocky Mountain Power who is unwilling to acknowledge it.”

Tooele County Commissioner Jerry Hurst said Rocky Mountain Power officials’ decision to reject local solutions is disappointing.

“It seems to me like we worked hard to come up with not just problems but solutions,” Hurst said. “When they turned in this deal with the original route — this south bench route and the east bench route that wraps around Tooele City — we all said, ‘That’s totally unacceptable.’ I really thought we’d talked them out of that, but when they turned in their proposal it was for that original route. I don’t know what kind of game we’re playing here, but I don’t like it.”

The 500/345kV transmission line would run from Mona in Juab County to a proposed future Limber Substation to be built in the Tooele Valley. One line would then run to the existing Oquirrh Substation in West Jordan. The other line would go to the existing Terminal Substation in Salt Lake City.

The Bureau of Land Management released a draft environmental impact statement on the proposed project in May. Rocky Mountain Power and the BLM conducted public meetings in June. In addition, because of controversy surrounding routes in the Tooele Valley, Rocky Mountain Power held public conflict resolution meetings in hopes of finding a compromise on the Limber to Oquirrh line route — a route that could involve crossing the southeast benches of Tooele.

In a document to the BLM dated Sept. 21, city and county officials, and members of two citizens groups, said in general they concurred with RMP’s proposed route from Mona to Terminal, although they proposed transmission lines near Grantsville be limited in number and located as far west as possible. They also proposed the Limber substation be moved to northern Tooele Valley near I-80. Finally, they proposed the Limber-to-Oquirrh portion of the line be routed to minimize impact to residents in Tooele Valley, and that routes going through the south and east parts of Tooele City be eliminated.

However, Margaret Oler, spokeswoman with Rocky Mountain Power, said the letter ignored the company’s siting criteria, which was discussed at length during meetings held with various groups.

“The purpose of that series of meetings was to develop some kind of compromise route but clearly any kind of a compromise route still had to meet the siting criteria,” she said. “So there wasn’t a compromise that was able to be reached that met the siting criteria, and the consensus letter also does not propose anything that meets the siting criteria.”

Tooele City Mayor Patrick Dunlavy said he was also disappointed that months of negotiations with company officials were fruitless.

“Usually we got some reason that they couldn’t go that way or didn’t want to go that way, so we worked with them,” Dunlavy said. “We thought at that point in time we were trying to come up with something that would work for both sides without negatively impacting citizens in Tooele County. But it became apparent at the last couple of meetings that their deadlines were coming up and that they had basically, in my opinion, not really negotiated in good faith. I believe they had their routes picked out and that there really wasn’t anything we could do or say or were willing to compromise on that would change that.”

Oler said Rocky Mountain Power plans to file for a conditional use permit in Tooele County in the next few weeks. She said as a regulated utility, RMP must move forward with localized refinements to the currently proposed routes in order for the project to be in operation by June 2012.

“That’s a public process and there will be additional opportunities [for public input] during that conditional use permit process and we do encourage citizens to participate in that process,” she said.

When the company files for the application for the conditional use permits, Oler said they will prepare them for Rocky Mountain Power’s proposed routes in Tooele County, not alternatives.

“Applying for the conditional use permits now keeps the project on schedule and that is extremely important,” she said. “The project has to be in service on time. That said, we recognize that we are assuming some level of risk applying for conditional use permits at this point because we might have to go back and amend a CUP application if there are changes when the final EIS is published.”

Pratt said they have asked the Public Service Commission for a public hearing to review actions undertaken by Rocky Mountain Power.

“This is our county, this is where we live — our city, our valley, our future,” she said. “They’re spending our money and ruining our land.”

The final EIS is expected for January 2010. There will be another public comment period after that document is released.

Sarah Miley: swest@tooeletranscript.com