Concerned individuals got their say in on the TransWest Express Transmission Line project during an open house held last Wednesday at the Jeffrey Center in Rawlins.
Surrounded by large maps, diagrams, photographs and statistical reports on the project, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) took comments from residents, landowners and others interested in the project regarding likes, dislikes and changes they would like to see. The open house meeting was meant to inform all interested in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) involved with the project.
Other nearby open houses took place in Baggs and Craig, Colo., and open houses are scheduled for various Utah and Nevada towns and cities that would be close to or impacted by the project.
According to TransWest Express LLC, a wholly owned affiliate of the Denver.-based Anschutz Corporation, the Trans-West Express Transmission Project is a 600 kV, high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission system designed to transport high-capacity wind energy generated in Wyoming to Desert Southwest markets in Nevada, California and Arizona that have growing demands for cost-effective renewable power. The Anschutz Corporation was also involved with the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre 1,000-turbine wind farm energy project, which was planned for the Overland Trail Ranch area, and Trans-West Express LLC was formed in 2008 to continue development of the TransWest Express Transmission Project.
There are currently four routes proposed for the Trans-West project, which is projected to include 725 miles — with 90 of those being in Wyoming — of extra-high voltage, direct-current power lines. The lines’ capacity would be large enough to carry the estimated 3,000 megawatts generated by the wind farm.
The DEIS for TransWest was released at the end of June, and the public has until Sept. 30 to review and comment on it. Sierra Club Representative Connie Wilbert, of Laramie, expressed concerns on how the project would affect area wildlife.
“Broadly speaking, our primary concerns are focused on things like the impact to wildlife, especially wildlife species in special conservation areas, big game migration and sage grouse habitats along the routes,” she said. “I would also be concerned if the proposed routes lie in conjunction to areas on the ground that have some protective designation or status like special management areas, inventoried roadless areas or anything like that.”
Wilbert said visual impacts caused by the lines, or areas the lines would cross, were also of concern.
“We would be concerned if routes lie near or cross historical trails or resources,” she said. “We’d like to see which routes have the least effect in that sense.”
Fern Linton, Green River resident and member of the Oregon California Trail Association, said she was also concerned in the same way as Wilbert, focusing on the land views and preservation and protection of Wyoming’s trails and other land areas.
“Wyoming has well-protected trails and a lot of federal land, and I’m concerned that the project would cross through both the Cherokee Trail and Overland Trail,” she said. “I’d like to get out and see where it’s going to cross, and see what they can do to minimize issues. Maybe they could also lower the towers or stretch them apart further. I’d like to go with the least invasive route.”
With nine more open house dates, BLM Project Manager and TransWest Project Leader Sharon Knowlton said she hopes all people who attend thoroughly study the four alternatives and give proper feedback. The BLM would then review and analyze the public comments and make changes to the DEIS as necessary.
“I would like if for people to walk away from this meeting with a burning desire to read my document and analyze the alternatives that are in their area,” Knowlton said. “I would like to see them have constructive comments on that, ones that I can use and respond to, and actually write comments down and submit them to the BLM.”
Knowlton said she would also appreciate feedback specifically geared toward the BLM’s preliminary preferred route, which would run through southern Sweetwater and Carbon County and take the lines close to Baggs.
“I would hope that through the comment period I have right now, through the end of September, I will get enough comments on the preliminary preferred route,” she said. “I hope that it will aide us in either finalizing that as an alternative, or making some adjustments to it. Then, presenting that in an FEIS (Final Environmental Impact Statement), which would be our final impact statement, we’d present that to the public one more time about a year from now and have a comment period from that.”
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