Umatilla hearing draws residents’ opposition to United Electric Cooperative’s proposed 230 kV transmission line

United Electric Cooperative’s proposal for a roughly 5.6-mile, double-circuit 230-kilovolt transmission line drew sustained public opposition at an Aug. 27, 2009 Umatilla Planning Commission hearing, where residents cited visual impacts, declining property values, health anxieties about electromagnetic fields and wildfire risk. The commission did not vote on the application that night; the applicant asked to leave the written record open under a week-by-week '7-7-7' timeline to submit technical responses.

Brandon Sites, Umatilla’s community development director, opened the staff presentation by summarizing the application and procedural record. Sites said staff included the comment letters that arrived before the packet deadline and noted nine additional comment letters arrived the week of the hearing. He described the route in the staff report as starting near the McNary BPA substation and running toward a Port-area substation, and said the applicant had secured easements from most private landowners outside Army Corps property. Sites also flagged that many standard site-review requirements for buildings are “not applicable” to a transmission line and that staff had not yet amended findings to incorporate the late comment letters.

An applicant representative for United Electric Cooperative described the project’s stated purpose as improving system…