Power line impact statement delayed

The release of the final environmental impact statement on a proposed high-powered transmission line through Clark and Cowlitz counties has been put off until next year by the Bonneville Power Administration.

BPA spokesman Kevin Wingert said the release of the final version is now expected sometime before March.

“We conveyed it was going to be sometime around the end of year or beginning of the next, but it looks like that time frame is sliding more toward January and the end of the first quarter,” he said. “There’s not quite a firm date at this point.”

Wingert said the delay of the final EIS release is due to efforts to incorporate stakeholders’ comments, responses to those comments and other updates. He also emphasized that it is an informational document, not a decisional one.

The 500-kilovolt transmission line, dubbed the I-5 Corridor Reinforcement Project, was proposed more than six years ago. The preferred route between Castle Rock and Troutdale, Ore., was identified in 2012.

Officials from BPA say the line is needed to relieve strain on the current electrical grid and to accommodate future growth. However, the project and the approval process has rankled landowners along the proposed route who say their input has been ignored.

“It’s a big project, and you want to make sure you’ve got everything right,” Wingert said.

The final say is up to BPA Administrator Elliot Mainzer. If he approves the project in 2016, construction could begin as early as 2017.