The public comment period has been extended to May 31 on a proposed 600-mile public power transmission line building project that would stretch from the Nevada border in Lassen County to Santa Clara, south of San Francisco.
The lines would cut across Shasta County, through Round Mountain, down to Cottonwood and to Olinda and then move southwest to Red Bluff.
"We got a lot of feedback," said Randy Wilkerson, public affairs specialist for Western Area Power Administration, one of the two groups working on the project.
How much is a lot?
"I wouldn't be able to quantify it," he said.
But he did say that at every meeting they held to discuss the proposed project with the public they heard multiple times that people wanted more time to comment.
So officials decided to extend the public comment period, Wilkerson said.
"That's our goal, to listen," he said.
Officials got an earful when they visited Redding earlier this month. Nearly 200 Shasta and Tehama County residents packed the Red Lion Hotel ballroom asking skeptical and sometimes hostile questions about the proposed project.
As planned, the $1.5 billion project would relieve congestion on the transmission routes linking the Pacific Northwest to municipal utilities belonging to the Transmission Agency of Northern California (TANC), which includes Redding and 14 others.
The new line would also allow TANC members access to wind, solar and geothermal energy that may one day be developed in Lassen County and other rural areas. Currently, a proposed wind-power generation project is in the works at Hatchet Ridge in eastern Shasta County.
The project's path would take it through along two separate lines through the Raven area along Highway 395 in Lassen County west across the Cascades between Highway 44 and Highway 299.
If you want to comment
• Write in: Send letters by May 31 to David Young, NEPA Document Manager, Western Area Power Administration, Sierra Nevada Region, 114 Parkshore Drive, Folsom, CA 95630; by fax to 916-353-4772; or by email to TTPEIS@wapa.gov.
• Call in: (916) 353-4777
• To view the proposed project: visit www.tanc.us or http://www.wapa.gov/transmission/ttp.htm
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
Comments » 0
Be the first to post a comment!
Share your thoughts
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.