City official says power line flak is BLM's fault

The Bureau of Land Management is forcing Idaho Power to route its Gateway West Transmission Line Project through the city limits, Kuna City Planner Steven Hasson said after a two-hour meeting Wednesday between city officials, BLM and Idaho Power. He said the agency ignored an Idaho Power study that showed the utility's preferred route for its proposed 500,000 volt Gateway project was through the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area south of Kuna that is already "crisscrossed" with similar high-voltage electrical towers. "Last year the BLM just told them there was no way those lines were going to run on public land," Hasson said. "It soon became apparent who was the 800-pound gorilla in the room. It was a matter of might makes right." The Gateway project calls for running 1,150 miles of transmission line from a substation near Casper, Wyo., to the Hemingway substation outside of Melba. Unable to locate the transmission lines on public land, Idaho Power submitted a proposal to the BLM that would route the project on land that Kuna has since annexed. If the project goes that route, it would endanger construction of the Osprey Ridge development, a 1,500-acre, 4,500-home and mixed-used planned community, according to Jedd K. Jones, an attorney for Osprey Ridge Partners LLLP...Idaho Statesman

It's no problem having a National Conservation Area near your community. Just plan on having your property condemned for rights of ways that otherwise would have been on federal land, and don't plan on economic development that would bring jobs.

Remember city officials: BLM, Congress and the enviro's told you an NCA would be good for business. Do you still believe them?