Critics fight border power line (endangered cactus)

With the nation's power grid suddenly in the spotlight, Tucson environmentalists vow they'll sue to pull the plug on a 66-mile power line proposed between Sahuarita and Nogales.

Tucson Electric Power says its $70 million project will improve the reliability of electrical service in Santa Cruz County. Past blackouts there and the area's dependence on a single transmission line prompted the Arizona Corporation Commission in 1999 to mandate construction of another link between Nogales and the Western power grid.

TEP also wants to extend the line another 60 miles south of the border so it can sell power to Mexico's national utility. To do that, it needs a special "presidential permit" from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Nearly 200 massive power poles and nearly half the proposed route would run through the Coronado National Forest. TEP says it will take pains to avoid an endangered cactus and to revegetate disturbed areas. The utility is backed up by a new federal study that concludes the power line will do little harm to Southern Arizona's environment, aside from degrading its aesthetics.

But critics argue that Nogales could be helped with a smaller power line, a different route or a new local power plant. They say TEP's proposal would spoil scenic vistas and slice across a vast roadless area.

"They couldn't have picked a worse place to put a power line," said David Hodges, executive director of the Tucson-based Sky Island Alliance. Since 1998, the group has devoted thousands of volunteer hours to surveying the rugged mountains west of I-19 and lobbying to make them a federal wilderness area.

If the Department of Energy approves the route, Hodges' group and the Center for Biological Diversity say they'll definitely go to court to block it.

The center has earned a national reputation for winning lawsuits against the federal government on behalf of 329 species.

It believes the TEP plan would violate rules that protect roadless areas on the Coronado, said Brian Segee, an attorney for the Tucson-based group. The Center would also argue the power line would hurt Syca-more Canyon - a renowned birding area west of Nogales that is a candidate for protection under the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

TEP's plan calls for putting two high-voltage lines on a single set of towers that would rise 140 feet above the desert and run through the Coronado for 29.5 miles. The 345,000-volt lines could carry 500 megawatts - enough to serve about one-quarter of TEP's customers in Tucson during peak usage on summer afternoons.

The Nogales utility, Citizens Communications, has committed to buying 100 megawatts from TEP to meet electricity demands beyond the 65 megawatts currently used in Santa Cruz County. TEP would send the remaining 400 megawatts to Santa Ana, Sonora, although power plants in Mexico could also send electricity north to Tucson and other U.S. customers.

"It's a two-way street," TEP spokesman Joe Salkowski said. "The need for transmission reliability has been made all too clear in the past few weeks. This line will improve the transmission reliability in Tucson. We're at the bottom of the Western electrical grid, and all of our links come from the north."

Without a link to the U.S. power grid, Mexico might need to build a power plant that would "have its own environmental impacts," he said.

TEP and state regulators had considered three possible routes, but last January the Arizona Corporation Commission approved the westernmost path and rejected the other two, both of which would have skirted Amado, Tubac and Tumacácori National Historical Park.

Many local residents were happy to see the power line shifted west, away from their homes.

"Putting the towers in that part of the county - where people don't live or spend any time to speak of - won't hurt the animals. It's really not an environmental threat," said Tubac resident Earl Wilson, 75.

But while the western route is preferable to some, that doesn't mean they agree with TEP's proposal overall.

"The problems we've had down here haven't been with transmission lines. It's been with the distribution network" that feeds energy into people's homes, said Wilson, a retired businessman who was appointed to air quality panels by former President Lyndon B. Johnson and the governor of Maryland.

"People down here are really upset because we'll end up paying for a transmission line we don't need. The answer is a local generating plant," he said.

It's true the Nogales area could get energy from a new power plant there, TEP's Salkowski said, but it would still need additional power lines run to the facility so it could send out surplus power. The extra electricity can't be stored, and it's far too costly for a power plant to keep lowering its output, he said.

Federal land agencies affected by the plan - including the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management - have yet to pick their preferred route, but will do so in the environmental study's final version.

The Coronado is waiting to weigh in until it sees the public's comments, spokeswoman Gail Aschenbrenner said.

The proposed route would entail about 429 poles or towers, including 191 on the Coronado and eight on BLM land. TEP would primarily use "mono-poles" that take up 25 square feet at their base. The familiar, lattice towers have a footprint of 3,600 square feet.

TEP would need to build about 20 miles of new, temporary roads, and it would temporarily disturb about 197 acres on the Coronado during construction, according to the environmental study. The project would permanently disturb 29 acres of the 1.8 million-acre national forest.

"Because the proposed project would be in an arid area, where vegetation recovers very slowly, disturbances due to construction could have long-term impacts," the study said. A government measure of "scenic integrity" would decrease on 18,511 acres on the Coronado, the study said.

TEP promises it will close and revegetate one mile of road for every new mile it builds.

Environmentalists, however, say closing a wildcat road in a heavily used part of the Coronado doesn't balance the building of a new road in a pristine area. "All roads are not created equal," Hodges said.

In building the power line, TEP would also expand its South Substation in Sahuarita by 1.3 acres and construct a new 18-acre Gateway Substation in an industrial park on the west side of Nogales.

None of the proposed routes bisect any critical habitat the federal government has mapped for endangered species. But they do cross through areas occupied, either currently or historically, by seven to 10 species protected by the Endangered Species Act.

One such species - the endangered Pima pineapple cactus - is found along all three proposed routes. TEP says it will avoid the cacti and is offering to buy habitat elsewhere to help the plant.

Construction, expected to last 12 to 18 months, would create about 30 construction jobs and 31 other positions, according to the federal study.

In public meetings, some residents worried about the health effects of the power line's electromagnetic field. But the study found people in the nearest homes, schools and businesses would receive less exposure than they do from ordinary household appliances.

TEP says the federal government's delays in preparing the environmental study make it impossible to meet the Arizona Corporation Commission's Dec. 31, 2003, deadline for creating a backup power supply for Nogales. The panel is expected to decide next month whether to grant an extension, spokeswoman Heather Murphy said.

But while critics say Nogales' power supply isn't unreliable, Murphy said it's clear Nogales needs a new link to the Western power grid.

"If that existing line to Nogales goes out, customers in Nogales suffer," she said. "There will be a point at which Nogales and Santa Cruz County won't be able to grow anymore because they can't get a reliable source of energy for the future."

How 'bout this:

We put in the 66 mile line AND build the power plant. Then we tell the Tucson environmentalists to pound sand. If they want to live with without power, fine. They are more than welcome to move to someplace (preferably outside the US) were they don't have power.

HUMANS FIRST!!! God's Word states that man shall have dominion over all other animals. The Lord put them here for us to eat, that's why He made them taste so good.

These environmentalist pukes are really starting to annoy me.

2 posted on 08/30/2003 11:46:53 AM PDT by appalachian_dweller (If we accept responsibility for our own actions, we are indeed worthy of our freedom. – Bill Whittle)

We put in the 66 mile line AND build the power plant. Then we tell the Tucson environmentalists to pound sand. If they want to live with without power, fine.

I like the way you think.

FMCDH

Are these the same enviro-wackos who don't want the Border Patrol entering Organ Pipe and Cabeza Prieta, so they won't be tearing around the desert chasing the illegals?

That is, the illegals who have carved scores of roads across "the roadless wilderness" and littered "the scenic vistas" with junked cars and human waste? While taking pains not to disturb the endangered cacti, I'm sure...

My suggestion, then, is to grade and pave an illegal immigrant's highway adjacent to the power lines, on the condition that all traffic be directed to this route (and away from the other "precious and pristine" wilderness areas). A few comfort stations would probably be in order, as well.

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