Public gets to speak up longer about power line

Mid-Valley residents will get an extra month to sound off on plans for a new power transmission line that could cut through Yuba-Sutter or Colusa County.

Federal energy officials and the Transmission Agency of Northern California on Friday announced a one-month extension of the public comment period for the power line. The deadline was pushed back from Thursday to 5 p.m. May 31 to write the agency or the federal Western Area Power Administration about a preliminary study to choose one of three possible routes for the project.

The extension follows an outcry about a lack of public notice about the transmission project. At an April 14 forum in Williams — the only one held in the Mid-Valley — many audience members complained they and their neighbors learned of the proposal only this month, despite TANC's efforts to mail notices to landowners within 300 feet of the three possible routes.

The powerline project would add or replace up to 600 miles of cables, carrying 230 to 500 kilovolts, from Lassen County to Modesto. Transmission agency officials say the project will connect the California power grid to future renewable-resource power plants in Lassen County meant to help power companies meet state minimums for electricity made without fossil fuels.

Two options would pass through Yuba-Sutter and near the Sutter Buttes. A third route would skirt the Coast Range in western Colusa County. All the choices endured criticism during the Williams meeting, amid landowner fears of falling property values, increased cancer risks and intrusion into the buttes area.

A required environmental study is expected to be finished in 2011, and project planners say the transmission lines would enter service no earlier than 2014.

Send comments on the TANC Transmission Project to David Young, NEPA Document Manager, Western Area Power Administration:

• Mail: 114 Parkshore Drive, Folsom, CA 95630;

• Online: TTPEIS@wapa.gov;

• Fax: 916-353-4772.

The deadline is May 31.