Agencies delay energy corridor timeline

After public outrcy over a proposal to lay an energy cooridor through the biologically sensitive Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, federal agencies claim their new maps, due out in the spring of 2007, will be likely avoid national parks and monuments.

The U.S. Department of Energy, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service and other groups are delaying a timeline to designate where a proposed 3,500-foot energy corridor could go in 11 western states.

As part of Section 368 of the 2005 Energy Policy Act, government agencies are required to designate energy corridors across federal lands for oil, natural gas and hydrogen pipelines and electricity transmission and distribution facilities.

After more than 200 comments were sent in over preliminary maps for the energy corridor, project managers announced Tuesday they would extend the timeline to refine alternatives that would go into a programmatic environmental impact statement for the corridor designation.

One original map showed the corridor would cut directly through the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in the mountains east of Ashland. Dave Willis, chairman of the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council, worked for decades with other groups and individuals to help create the monument in 2000. Under the Clinton administration, a 53,000-acre monument was designated for its biological diversity. The monument lies on federal Bureau of Land Management land.

In June, Willis noticed the corridor was set to run through an existing easement where power lines already transmit electricity through the monument. He was shocked.

"Trying to put a two-thirds mile wide energy corridor through a 200-foot easement is like asking a python to swallow a tyrannosaurus rex," Willis said.

He said the magnitude of the project is "outrageously surreal" and could mean a disaster for sensitive species in the monument and other sensitive areas throughout the West. The project, Willis said, is a symptom of a greater issue in the western United States of a need for more energy.

"We need to sober up from our energy debauch," Willis said. "Population and demand are out of control."

After a Nov. 19 article appeared in the Medford Mail Tribune showcasing the potential that the corridor would cut through the area, representatives for the Bureau of Land Management began to stress that the energy corridor would not cut through the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.

Scott Powers, a spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management, said initial maps that showed the corridor in the monument show a different scenario than what might eventually happen.

"When we first drew these proposed corridors, they were generally themes," Powers said. "Now we've started taking them to a different level."

He said initial drawings were a "point A to point B" plan, and two alternatives — one to the east and one to the west of the monument — will likely be used.

"One of the screens has always been to avoid national parks and monuments," Powers said. "We have insisted that the locations be consistent with local management, also."

Maya Fuller, a spokeswoman with the BLM in Portland, echoed Powers' statements that the sensitive Cascade-Siskiyou Monument would be avoided.

"Either way, no matter what, the corridor will not go through the monument," Fuller said.

The next time maps will come out to the public, will be spring 2007.

Nada Culver, senior counsel with the Wilderness Society, has been following the programmatic environmental impact statement process closely. She said she is still not convinced of where the corridor will go without attaining updated maps from the involved government agencies. Culver noted that some aspects of the public announcement to delay the process could mean more environmental analysis by federal agencies like the Forest Service and BLM. However, the speed of the process and location of the first proposed corridor still raise concerns.

"I'm concerned there's not going to be enough time to assess all the impacts and concerns," Culver said last week.

The first maps, Culver said, appeared to show the corridor being placed with the interests of energy companies primarily in mind.

"It basically looks like they threw it out to energy and said 'where do you want it,'" Culver said.

Dave Kvamme, a spokesman for Pacific Power in Portland, said the designation of the energy corridor is necessary to deal with the constraints power companies face with the demand for more power from a growing population. Reliability is key for the power company's customers, Kvamme said, and with increasing demand, not designating a corridor could present power companies with "bad choices," Kvamme said.

"I would describe the region's electric transmission system as often full and very constrained," he said.

Kvamme said the size of the proposed corridor, which concerns environmentalists, is necessary because of the number of companies it would likely serve. The last time electricity pipelines were expanded, far fewer people lived in the West. Now, with more people and more competition in the open market for energy, Kvamme said the larger corridor is necessary to include gas and hydrogen pipelines also.