Rocky Mountain Power outlines 345 kV Spanish Fork–Mercer line; city and residents raise routing, access and visual-impact questions

Rocky Mountain Power presented its siting, routing and permitting plan on July 1 for a proposed 345-kilovolt transmission line running roughly 48 miles from the Spanish Fork substation to the Mercer substation south of Eagle Mountain. The utility and its consultants described a preferred teal-colored route and said they had already held five open houses and a virtual session to gather public input.

The project, Rita Reuterman, a consultant with Power Engineers, told the Spanish Fork City Council, would use single-steel monopole structures about 90 to 135 feet tall and a 125-foot easement (62.5 feet on either side of the pole center). Reuterman and Tammy Moody, Rocky Mountain Power’s principal project manager for regulatory permitting and public outreach, said the route evolved after fieldwork, conversations with jurisdictions and landowners and feasibility work.

“Unless it’s a safety issue, we really can’t do much,” Councilman Took paraphrased a local resident’s earlier public comment about alternative transmission corridors and emergency access; Council members and staff later pressed the company on alternative corridors. Rocky Mountain representatives said some alternatives were eliminated because they could not physically be built — for example, narrow corridors along Highway 6 where railroad and high-pressure gas lines prevented safe placement — and because co-locating a new 345 kV line on an existing transmission alignment along Powerhouse Road would create outage and maintenance constraints.

Company staff detailed the public outreach program and said they had mailed notices to landowners within 500 feet of the proposed centerline, published announcements in regional media and hosted mapping and GIS stations at open houses so property owners could identify parcel-level impacts. “At the open houses … we also gathered information,” Tammy Moody said, noting the project team adjusted some pole locations after learning about irrigation lines, new structures and other on-the-ground features from attendees.

Council members focused questions on specific local concerns: access during floods in the Riverbottoms area, how Rocky Mountain would work with irrigation and canal companies, how the company would compensate farmers for disruption to long, straight planting runs and whether poles could go in medians of major roads. Austin Tripp, the company’s land-acquisition project manager, said Rocky Mountain plans one-on-one easement negotiations, and that condemnation would be a last resort. “We will do months upon months of negotiation with landowners,” Tripp said.

The company also showed visual simulations of the line from West Mountain and near the Spanish Fork substation and provided a web portal with an interactive map. Moody said the permitting phase is under way; conditional-use permit applications to Utah County and the town of Genola were expected in the weeks following the meeting, with federal permitting underway where Bureau of Land Management land is crossed. Construction is projected to begin in mid-2026 with service in early 2028, Rocky Mountain representatives said.

Council members requested more detail on how pole siting and easement language would protect future access and development options for property owners, and asked the company to continue meeting interested landowners and irrigation districts. Moody said the company would continue outreach and would make minor route adjustments where feasible, but said some southern alternatives were no longer feasible because of recent housing construction and limited room to add another transmission corridor.

The city did not take formal action at the meeting; the presentation was informational. Council members urged Rocky Mountain to keep neighbors and the city informed as permitting and land-acquisition work proceeds.