Nov. 3--BURLEY -- Despite opposition to the proposed cross-county Stateline Route utility corridor, Cassia County commissioners wrote to the Bureau of Land Management Monday, asking the agency to remove an alternative route from its draft Environmental Impact Statement.
The county is one of five -- including Twin Falls, Power, Oneida and Bannock counties -- in southern Idaho developing interlocking utility corridors to help control where public utility transmission lines can be erected.
The counties banded together after Idaho Power and Rocky Mountain Power announced they would establish 1,150 miles of 230- and 500-kilovolt transmission lines from a substation near Glenrock, Wyo., to another existing station near Melba.
Under the proposed route, 70 miles of lines would cross Cassia County, with 60 miles occupying private property.
The letter was prompted by an e-mail sent to Cassia County Administrator Kerry McMurray from BLM Project Manager Walt George, informing the commission that both the Stateline Route -- which crosses the southern part of the county and dips into Utah and Nevada -- as well the an alternative route which crosses the state farther north near Elba and Oakley, would be considered in the draft EIS.
The commissioners' letter asks that the northern route be removed from the draft EIS and only the Stateline Route be considered.
"Expenditure of precious resources, not the least of which is time, would be wasted in pursuing analysis of a route that is too narrow for meaningful consideration of siting transmission lines, is in the very midst of archaeological opulence and runs alongside an historic byway for miles," the letter states.
The letter states that commissioners are working to develop a corridor overlay that will match the Stateline Route to bring electrical transmission lines across the county.
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