News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Tollgate residents looking at the prospect of a large new electrical substation just outside their back yard appear resigned to their fate.
Central Electric Cooperative (CEC) reports little contact from residents since a neighborhood meeting in April in which CEC explained their plans and asked for recommendations from residents on how to mitigate impacts.
"We took those recommendations and met with the county in a pre-application meeting," said CEC spokesman Allan Guggenheim.
CEC is planning the installation of a substation that will cover a footprint of 155-by-240-feet near the west fire exit of the subdivision. The steel structure will stand 30 feet tall. Several residences look directly out onto the site of the new facility, which will be built on land owned by CEC.
The project is necessary to bring CEC into compliance with Bonneville Power Administration's requirements that power be transmitted at an upgraded 115kv by the year 2010.
Guggenheim said that CEC's site plan application for the substation, which is expected to be submitted to the Deschutes County Community Development Department some time later this month, will include some plans for mitigation of visual impacts, based on citizen requests.
What that mitigation will be is unclear.
"They weren't uniform recommendations," Guggenheim said. "It's not as easy as saying, 'They all want a berm.'"
A berm is exactly what David Banks wants. He met last week with CEC officials to discuss the impact on his home and family, which he describes as being "at ground zero" - directly across a narrow fire road from the new project.
"The long and the short of it, I said, 'You guys have to build a berm,'" Banks said.
Banks has spoken with the Forest Service about the possibility of swapping land to allow CEC to move the power station further out into the woods and away from residences. The Forest Service has consistently rejected that possibility, since CEC already owns land for the new facility and has since 1982.
Banks has given up hope that the project can be diverted.
"Everyone's number-one desire its that they relocate it," Banks said. "They can't or they won't."
Banks said he and other property owners stand to lose both quality of life and property value. A real estate agent with whom Banks consulted told him that he could expect a diminishment of value on the order of close to 10 percent - $30,000 - due to the construction of a new substation.
The agent told Banks that a home in his situation would have to be a "best buy" to sell under those circumstances.
Given the apparent inevitability of the substation going up right behind his house, Banks decided to seek the greatest amount of mitigation he can achieve.
"I would want (a berm) to run the length of the substation - 245 feet - and maybe wrap around," he said.
Banks received estimates on construction that indicate such a project would cost from $7,000 to $10,000. Other estimates indicate that it would cost individual residents about $3,000 each to landscape their own properties to obscure the view of the substation.
Banks acknowledges that a berm won't completely obscure the facility.
"There's no way we could build a berm that would cover the whole thing," he said. "I won't be satisfied at all, but I'm just in there to get what I can."
Another problem neighbors have with the project is the prospect of months filled with construction noise and dust. That's what they experienced last summer when CEC had new power poles installed along the right-of-way running behind Tollgate.
Guggenheim assures the neighbors that the construction of the substation will not have that kind of impact.
"Bob McConnell, manager of operations and engineering, will keep a close watch on construction," he said.
There will be some site preparation requiring heavy equipment, "but it would be done very quickly."
After that, the project is a matter of assembly and the work is of low intensity.
"It's not heavy construction the way putting up transmission poles is," Guggenheim said.
CEC hopes to have engineering drawings completed and ready for submission to Deschutes County sometime in the next two weeks.
"We were hoping for June 15, but I don't think we're going to make that," Guggenheim said.
Guggenheim said the cooperative hopes to prep the site in September and October and install the substation in spring.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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