Utah Environmental Congress

MEDIA

New power line sought in Grand Staircase
Garkane Cooperative says it can't keep up with energy demand in southern part of state

By Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune

Published March 8, 2008

A power cooperative that provides electricity to southern Utah towns of Tropic, Panguitch and others is seeking approval to build a transmission line through the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to help keep up with electric demands.

The 138-kilovolt power line, which would be built by Garkane Energy Cooperative, would run alongside an existing Rocky Mountain Power line through the national monument, then split off and cross through the Dixie National Forest.

It would replace an old, inadequate line that now runs through Bryce Canyon National Park, said Bryant Shakespear, planning engineer for Garkane.

"Our new line would be much more visible. There will be larger poles, and that's why we propose to follow an existing transmission line that would be similar and that way wouldn't have as large impacts on the visual integrity" in the area, he said.

Building alongside the Rocky Mountain Power line through the monument would minimize the need for new roads and the disturbance inside the monument, he said.

But building a new corridor through the Dixie National Forest would mean traversing undeveloped forest land, redrock cliffs in Red Canyon and a prairie dog town, said Kevin Mueller of the Utah Environmental Congress. It would make more sense, he said, to just build the line in the existing corridor that has already been disturbed.

"There's no reason to have parallel corridors crisscrossing" the backcountry, Mueller said. "In terms of the quality of the backcountry, in terms of the wildlife habitat, having the utility corridor follow an existing road has less impact."

Shakespear said that, because of the growth in communities like Hatch, Panguitch, and Cedar Mountain, the existing power line is inadequate to meet the needs during peak power usage in the winter months and Garkane has had to use diesel generators.

"Based on our forecasts that will meet our needs for the foreseeable future, for the design life of the line," he said. Parts or all of the old line could be torn down and the land reclaimed.

The U.S. Forest Service announced last month that it would conduct an environmental impact study on the proposed power line construction. Public meetings on the power line proposal were scheduled for Wednesday in Panguitch and tonight in Cannonville.

An alternative route would be to run the power line parallel to the existing line and go through the national park instead of the forest.