I am not familiar with the line described in this story but I assume that the river in question was a congressionally designated Wild and Scenic River. If so, I am not surprised that the permit process took a year to complete and the transmission company shouldn't have been either. Proposing something as intrusive as a transmission line in such an area is virtually guaranteed to take a long time to approve.
Case in point: the Sunrise Powerlink. The route of this transmission line, ostensibly to bring renewable power from Imperial County to San Diego, originally ran right through Anza-Borrego State Park, California's largest state park, and through part of the state-designated wilderness area in that park, also the state's largest wilderness area. At first the proponent, a utility company, insisted that there were no alternatives to that original route. Then they said that, while there were some alternatives, all of them too involved going through Anza-Borrego. After approximately two years the permitting agencies, which included the Department of the Interior, approved an alternative route that they -- not the utility -- had identified. This route did not go near the park and had fewer environmental impacts.
The Sunrise Powerlink is a perfect example of why transmission planning needs to be done differently than it has been done in the past. Working hard from the beginning to identify a route that has minimal conflicts maximizes the chance that the permitting process will proceed with minimal delay and controversy. In contrast, selection of a route like the original Sunrise Powerlink guarantees both controversy and delay.
Development of our Google Earth layer is one of the things NRDC is doing to help avoid future Sunrise Powerlinks. We believe that new transmission will be necessary to access the renewable energy we need to help save the planet, but like everything else, the new lines must be done right.
]]>What's so important about these numbers? They mean that we have enough renewable resources to do their development and any needed transmission right!
More specifically, they mean that we don't need to look to places with unique and sensitive resources to site renewables generation projects. We can avoid those places - many of which have been identified by land managers and/or legislators at both the state and federal level - and look instead for areas where development would pose fewer conflicts. And, we can think about transmission when we are identifying those renewable areas, to avoid situations in which proponents of a new line asserts that it "must" go through a protected place in order to access renewables.
NRDC's new Google Earth layer is designed specifically to help identify places where development isn't appropriate as a first and necessary step towards identifying where it is. We need to develop our renewable resources if we are to address the challenge of climate change, but that development must be carried out in an environmentally responsible way. If it is done right, informed environmentalists will, I believe, stand up in support.
]]>First, determining whether development of a particular area is appropriate requires more resource information than we presently have. This is particularly true of wildlife information. Our Google layer has very little such information because it is currently unavailable - at least in GIS form. Neither generation projects nor transmission lines can be sited without knowledge of where endangered, threatened and rare species can be found, and where their habitat areas are, including key areas essential to their survival, like migration corridors. We hope to add more such data to our map in the future but, even after we do, that won't be enough.
Second, decisions about whether a particular area is appropriate for development need to be made in a public and transparent process, in which wildlife experts, local residents and a host of others can participate fully.
Lastly, such decisions cannot be made in the absence of thorough environmental review. Renewable energy projects and green transmission lines, just like other energy projects and lines, have undeniable environmental impacts. While we hope to add more information of all kinds, in addition to wildlife data, our map will never substitute for detailed consideration of the resources of a particular area and the potential impacts of development on them.
Ideally, decisions about siting green projects and green lines should be made on a regional basis through a process that not only involves multiple stakeholders and careful environmental review, but also provides a way to compare potential development areas at the landscape level in order to determine which of those areas are best and why. Hopefully our map will help concerned citizens advocate for the initiation of such a process and arm them with information to be effective advocates in it.
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