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Power lines tying up progress?
Solar projects snagged on law protecting historic artifacts
Traffic moves Monday along the Hoover Dam past the transmission lines that carry power from the dam. By law, old power lines can be considered historic artifacts.
Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009 | 2 a.m.
Transmission lines more than 50 years old, like those carrying power from Hoover Dam, could be protected by federal law.
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Sun coverage
When considering Nevada’s cultural and historic artifacts, one thinks of Hoover Dam, American Indian petroglyphs, even the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign.
Generally power lines are not on the list.
But that’s the latest hiccup solar energy developers are swallowing. The power lines many of their projects would depend on are on federally protected land. They say they need new lines built or those old ones upgraded. Under the National Historic Preservation Act and related regulations, the BLM has to study the potential impact a solar energy project, and any resulting power line upgrades, would have on historical artifacts in the area. Strangely enough, that includes old power lines.
Under the law, any infrastructure on public lands that is at least 50 years old could be considered historic, even a working transmission line.
“Whoever said that is from another planet,” said Mark Harris, a Public Utilities Commission resource planning engineer, when he was first told of the red tape snag.
But it’s no joke.
Several of the lines subject to the rule stretch across Southern Nevada, most of them carrying electricity from Hoover Dam. These lines run through the most popular solar hot spots in the state. The BLM acreage near these power lines has attracted dozens of solar energy project proposals.
The operator of most of the old lines, the Western Area Power Administration, says it wouldn’t be able to accommodate every proposed project with its current technology.
Solar developers, likewise, have said for years there simply isn’t enough room for their power on the existing infrastructure. They want to see a large, modern transmission system capable of moving all their solar electricity beyond Las Vegas to population hubs such as Los Angeles, Phoenix and Salt Lake City.
Without that capability, you can kiss your solar gold rush dreams goodbye, developers say.
The BLM recently completed a draft environmental impact statement on a massive multistate transmission upgrade plan. The report outlines areas where large-capacity, high-voltage transmission is most needed and what the effects of these new or upgraded lines would be. It includes several proposed new or expanded lines in Nevada.
The presence of a “historically significant” power line in the path of this new technology isn’t a death knell for solar projects. But it does create more paperwork and could stretch out the permitting process.
If an old power line on public land needs to be torn down or significantly altered to accommodate renewable energy projects, it triggers another layer in the lengthy environmental impact statement process. The BLM has to consult interested parties, from the power line owners to historians to electrical engineering enthusiasts, and evaluate the line’s historical value. The BLM’s office of heritage applies four basic criteria: association with important events, association with important people, whether it is an example of an important type of engineering or architecture, and whether it provides information important to history or prehistory.
If the line meets enough of those criteria, it could wind up on the National Register of Historic Places — as Hoover Dam is.
And while a connection to the dam is significant, the power lines themselves are unlikely to be considered vital to the nation’s history.
Instead, developers would be asked to mitigate the impacts of changing the power lines or tearing them down. They’d likely be asked to create a historical document about the line including engineering plans, photographs and a report on its history and use, among other things.
But even as the BLM is looking at how solar energy affects historical infrastructure, it could be creating new ones. The NexLight solar photovoltaic plant proposed on BLM land in Primm is slated for an initial lease of 50 years.
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Environmentalist now hold up solar power. How poetic.
Leave the towers, bypass the lines, otherwise we might as well revert to buggy whips...
How lame is this?? It's a friggin' powerline, not the Statue of Liberty!!! If thats the case, we best make all the cement used in the area that is older than 50yrs historical also!!
Looks like the Sun just hates all those petroglyphs, tortoises, cultural sites and other public treasures mucking up their green economy ideal! Develop it all! If we don't destroy the last public lands, we'll all burst into flames from global warming in ten years!
Of course, global warming has never been improtant enough for any climate activists to actually turn off their computers. No, we can blanket the world with windmills so we can have three more computers per fat American!
Have any of you actually gone thru the process to determine the eligiblity of a building or anything else? Do you have a degree in history? No? Then you are just spewing garbage. It is a process to determine if something is historic. No it is not the Statue of Liberty, but most things aren't. Many buildings or other things have importance to people or communities. Just because you don't feel something is not important, doesn't meant it isn't.
Beside this process provide many very meaningful jobs during this economic crisis.
I think we need a solar czar that is empowered by law to consider these issues and cut through the red tape, if necessary.
Sometimes things are just so silly they don't seem to warrant much attention. That is until someone tries to use a regulation for an unintended purpose. When we draw up laws we try to put some common sense in them but when we have individuals reading them that only want to obstruct and not take into account the original intent of a law. Clearly, power lines are an eyesore for all. Ridiculous! Where are all those Harvard lawyers that we have representing us in congress to resolve a simple issue such as the intended purpose of a very good regulation?
Is anybody minding the store? This has to have been thought out by a lawyer.
Gee, who elected the people that made these regulations or elected the people that appointed the ones that made these regulations. Spay and nuter so they don't reproduce more like them.
We tend to have a callous indifference toward our past. Granted, something as ugly as a power transmission line is difficult to deem as historic, but IT IS.
Power lines, historic? A necessary eyesore is closer. Look at all the people in Henderson fighting to prevent more power lines in their neighborhood. Maybe someone should tell them they would qualify for federal funds to preserve them? And then we could start "preserving" all the nasty trailer parks in North Las Vegas. Some of those fire traps date back to the 1950's. Rathole? No, that's a historical treasure. Condemned? No, we need to spend $1 million to restore an 8'x40' airstream. No wonder were sinking like a rock.
Under the law, if the power lines are "unlikely to be considered vital to the nation's history," they get torn down- PERIOD, end of story. No documents, no pictures, no National Register of Historic Places. Just demolition. Something like 90% of the BLM's projects end with everyone saying "yup, nothing there worth saving," and that's it. (Most of the other 10% involve old Indian stuff).
Articles like this always try to spin a story out of nothing.