There is a new gold rush in the west. Up one side, (or down the other) energy corridors are crossing National Forest lands in support of the new found demand for renewable energy. Wind and water electric capacity is being developed on private and public land in California. Each new megawatt created needs to get to a distribution line that connects the Grid with us, the power users.
Energy development is a National Forest priority. Short timelines developed by municipal utilities, corporations and other governmental agencies are pushing Forest Service staff to scramble to have public land issues considered and resolved.
Visual, cultural, recreation, vegetation, soil, watershed and riparian impacts from miles of project development must be analyzed on someone else’s schedule – not the Forest Service’s schedule. Show up and comment, or they will move on without you and your public land issues. “Caring for the Land and Serving People” is not on everyone’s agenda.
The Angeles National Forest contracted with my Forest Service Enterprise Team, Adaptive Management Services Enterprise Team (AMSET) for an ID Team Leader for the Barren Ridge Renewable Transmission Project. It is one of my first enterprise team contracts and one of five projects that are stretching me from the Cleveland to the Umpqua National Forest. Virtual work means crossing as much land as a western utility corridor.
The City of Los Angeles, Department of Water and Power (LADWP) submitted a Special Use Application to the Angeles National Forest to construct, upgrade, and add facilities to a new and existing 230-kV electric transmission system which would be part of the Barren Ridge Renewable Transmission Project. LADWP also submitted an application to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) because a portion of the project would also cross public lands managed by BLM. The Forest, BLM and LADWP are entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to complete a joint Environmental Impact Statement and Environmental Impact Report (EIS and EIR) to comply with both the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
Barren Ridge Renewable Transmission Project includes: Constructing approximately 60 miles of a new 230-kV double circuit structure system (13 miles on National Forest System lands); installing approximately 12 miles of a 230-kV circuit onto existing double circuit transmission line structure; reconductoring the existing 230-kV transmission system; and constructing a new Haskell Switching Station on LADWP-owned lands.
The proposed project would facilitate LADWP’s need to meet Renewable Portfolio Standard goals to provide renewable energy; interconnect LADWP to renewable energy in the Tehachapi Mountains and Mojave Desert areas; maximize the capacity of existing LADWP transmission corridors; and, increase the efficient utilization of the Castaic Power Plant, an existing hydroelectric pumping-storage facility.
The Forest Service, LADWP, and BLM are in the process of developing the Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report. Several alternative routes are being considered.
While on a field review of the route options being conceidered in the the EIS, I photographed the towers that stretched across the Mojave desert and into the Angeles National Forest.
I took digital photos with my Nikon D70s, and a Nikor 18- 200mm zoom lens. Post processing was done on my iMac using iPhoto and commercially printed.
