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| (Photo credit: GarrettTT (Flickr)) |
Sutter and Colusa landowners have expressed their displeasure at the possibility of new power transmission lines being put into place through their property.
The Colusa-Sutter transmission line, called the CoSu Line for short, is intended to link the Sacramento area with the clean power being generated in southern Oregon.
A map of the COTP line and the proposed CoSu Line connections.
Currently, the transmission line runs past Sacramento all the way down to central California. However, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District has expressed interest in connecting with the line in order to reduce the Sacramento area’s dependency on gas fired plants, as per state legislation.
Sutter and Colusa county residents meanwhile have expressed displeasure in the project, because the additional transmission towers would have to be built through their land. These 100 – 200 foot towers take up space that could be used for farming, severely affecting the landowner’s ability to make a profit.
Government officials in both counties also oppose the CoSu Line. A letter from State Sen. Jim Nielson to the utility district explains that most of the land that would be taken for the line belongs to generational landowners.
“If they are forced to give up their land through the eminent domain process, it would be devastating to the legacy they have built,” he wrote in a letter to the project management.
Barbara LeVake of the Sutter County Board of Supervisors was even more blunt with her criticisms
“There is no benefit,” LeVake said about the CoSu Line.
However, CoSu project manager Lowell Rogers insists that the utility district is doing as much as they can to reduce the impact of the line.
“If you keep it in perspective, we're accessing a huge amount of renewables through a short connection line,” Rogers said. “If we build this line somewhere else, there's a landowner there too.”
The utility district has not yet made a final determination about where the line will be built. Three routes have been proposed, the longest of which would traverse 44 miles from Maxwell to the Western O’Banion substation in Sutter County. The shortest would only cover nine miles. However, all three routes have been decried by Sutter and Colusa County officials.
The public hearing process for the project was recently extended to allow Sutter and Colusa county residents more time to make their voices heard, and Rogers has promised to listen to their input.
“I’m going to read every single comment and incorporate them into our decision process,” he said.
By Joe Silva