Decision paves the way for power company to start construction on transmission line project early next year

Rocky Mountain Power’s plan to erect high-voltage power lines along Tooele’s southeast bench will be moving full steam ahead, after the Utah Utility Facility Review Board ordered Tooele County on Monday to issue the company a conditional use permit within 60 days.

The decision came in response to RMP’s appeal of the county’s denial of a conditional use permit for its Mona to Oquirrh transmission line in March.

In the order, the board stated, “The Board, having reviewed the substantial, competent and credible evidence before it, unanimously finds the Company’s proposed Transmission Project is needed to provide safe, reliable, adequate and efficient service to its customers.”

According to the order, a party can file a written request for reconsideration with the board within 20 days. The request, which isn’t a prerequisite to judicial review, must include specific grounds upon which relief is requested. Judicial review of the board’s action can be made by filing a petition with the Utah Court of Appeals.

Kaye Pratt, chairwoman of the Tooele Concerned Citizens Group that opposes the power project’s present route, said she’s disappointed in the board’s decision.

“I expected them to be in favor of Rocky Mountain Power, but I hoped they wouldn’t,” she said.

Tooele County Commissioner Bruce Clegg, who hadn’t read the official decision yet, said, “I understand that they sided with Rocky Mountain Power almost exclusively. I find it unfortunate that they wouldn’t listen to our needs.”

Commissioner Jerry Hurst echoed those sentiments.

“Basically Rocky Mountain Power got what they wanted,” Hurst said.

Messages left with Tooele City Mayor Patrick Dunlavy and Tooele City Council Chairman Scott Wardle regarding the board’s order were not returned by press time.

The board said in its decision that most concerns and criticisms by local residents and government representatives didn’t pertain to the utility’s need for the project to provide safe, reliable, adequate and efficient utility service.

According to the board, instead the concerns are about “the impact about three miles of the proposed transmission line would have on property values, viewshed, and the cultural significance of man-made landmarks (i.e., the “T” on the mountainside) along the southern border of Tooele City.”

While the board said it understood concerns about these negative impacts, with only a few exceptions the county’s reasons for denial and the public comments addressed impacts that were not factors the board was authorized to consider in resolving the dispute. With the exception of four items with safety implications — disturbance of the International Smelter site; Settlement Canyon Reservoir use; potential contamination of watersheds and springs; and health risks regarding high power lines — most concerns were outside the statutory scope of the board’s review.

“Despite the County’s contentions that the Company did not adequately address these concerns, the Board finds the Company did address them,” the order says.

Ron Allen, a Stansbury Park resident and former state senator, sits on the five-member review board as a public service commissioner. He said the final decision was difficult, but the Legislature is very clear in what the board does and how it’s set up as an appeals board.

“We have to focus on safety, reliability and efficiency, and when you read through the whole order you’ll see we very carefully had to follow those mandates in looking at each of those issues,” Allen said. “We didn’t really feel that we had any legal evidence that controverted the work of the BLM or the selection of the sites based on a more scientific approach on where it should go. We pretty much looked at what was done and saw that the county was between a rock and a hard place. But the Legislature made it clear if there’s not a proposal for another site that’s not more reliable, efficient and safer, and if it’s more expensive, it gets paid for by those people moving it.”

The order said if the county had suggested an alternative transmission route that ended up costing more than the company’s route, the county could be responsible for those additional costs.

Tooele County Attorney Doug Hogan disagreed with the board’s interpretation of its mandate.

“I think the board had an opportunity to do some evaluation of information that had been provided by Rocky Mountain Power and they passed on the opportunity to do so,” he said, adding the board is housed within the Department of Commerce. “They [the utility facility review board] have a lot of in-house expertise when it comes to electrical transmission systems and public utilities — all the sorts of things that a local government does not have. I think the Legislature’s intent behind creating the utility facility review board was to put that body within a group that had in-house expertise so they could evaluate and use their own knowledge to be critical in situations like this where there’s controversy when it comes to siting a high-voltage transmission line. The way the board wrote its order, they declined to utilize any of that expertise or in-house knowledge and just relied on what Rocky Mountain Power provided without checking. That’s what’s disappointing to me. I think the Legislature’s intent of the statute was missed.”

Hogan added the county does have the option to ask the board to reconsider within 20 days or ask for a judicial review and appeal to the Court of Appeals.

“Those are decisions the commissioners will need to contemplate the pros and cons of and decide what course of action they think is best,” he said.

The board had until June 21 to issue a decision, which it did yesterday evening just before 6 p.m.

“That’s simply how long it took to get it out on time and to get it out right,” Allen said. “The Legislature gave us 45 days to get that order out and we had to go through literally a couple thousand pages of testimony and public input. Then we have to write the order and on top of that we put out several hundred orders a year. We literally were doing everything we could to get it out on time.”

Margaret Oler, spokeswoman for Rocky Mountain Power, said the board’s decision means that RMP will continue to work with Tooele County to complete the final permit on the project.

“We had previously committed to meet all the conditions required by Tooele County in the conditional use permit process so we will continue that process,” she said. “We provided detailed information on how compliance can be achieved and so we anticipate working closely with Tooele County to complete that process.”

Oler emphasized the Mona-to-Oquirrh segment needs to be in place by 2013.

“The thing we do have to stress is that completion of the project by 2013 is essential in order to serve increasing customer needs in Tooele County, all along the rest of the Wasatch Front, and for the service area of Rocky Mountain Power,” she said.

She added a newsletter will be sent out to people on the company’s mailing list updating the project’s timeline and details. People who aren’t on that list can get on it by requesting through an e-mail to ConstructionProjects@pacificorp.com or through the construction projects line at 801-220-4221. E-mails and phone messages must specify the mailing list for the Mona to Oquirrh project. The company’s website will also be updated with information. In the meantime, Oler said engineering work will be finalized, a contract will be awarded and construction is scheduled to begin early next year.

To view the Utah Utility Facility Review Board’s order, visit www.psc.utah.gov and look under docket 10-035-39.

Sarah Miley: swest@tooeletranscript.com