Elbert County planning commission recommends denial of Xcel Energy Colorado Pathways permits after hours of testimony

The Elbert County Planning Commission voted 9-0 on May 27 to recommend denial of Xcel Energy's major 1041 permit (1041-2024-9235) and its Special Use by Review (SUR-2024-9236) for the Colorado Pathways transmission project through Elbert County. The motions, carried in separate roll calls, concluded a board-only discussion after public comment had closed and after multiple hours of technical questioning of the applicant and staff.

The recommendation to deny the permits follows extensive questioning by commissioners on route selection, eminent domain, environmental and wildlife surveys, fire mitigation, local economic benefits, and the state statutes cited by the company for condemnation authority. Staff and several commissioners told the commission the SUR and 1041 packets remained incomplete for Elbert County review, and that agency referral issues were unresolved.

Why it matters: The Colorado Pathways project is a multi-segment transmission build Xcel and partners have advanced through the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC). County land-use approval is required for the route through Elbert County even though the PUC process determines that there is a statewide need. A recommendation for denial from the planning commission is advisory to the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC); the county and applicant have a July 10 procedural timeline they referenced during the meeting.

What the planning commission heard

Commissioners and community members raised repeated concerns about visual impacts and the accuracy of the applicant's visual simulations (KOPs). Commissioners said one simulation near Highway 86 under-represented nearby residences, and that short-distance visual impacts were not clearly shown.

On the project's purpose and routing, Parker Rosack, identified in the hearing as a senior manager of transmission engineering for the applicant, said segment 5 was designed to bring generation and redundancy from the southeastern part of the state into the Front Range and to provide alternate pathways if outages occur. Rosack acknowledged the route was chosen after balancing many factors and said the project team had studied hundreds of route miles and that parallel or adjacent routing was sometimes infeasible because of existing encroachments, conservation easements and other constraints.

The applicant also testified about grid planning context: Rosack and other company witnesses said the project supports replacement and integration of inverter-based resources…