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Demonstrators rally against BPA power line plan

Clark County residents voice their opposition at agency's Vancouver offices

By Erik Robinson
Published: April 30, 2010, 12:00am
2 Photos
Protesters march outside Bonneville Power Administration offices in the Van Mall neighborhood on Thursday.
Protesters march outside Bonneville Power Administration offices in the Van Mall neighborhood on Thursday. BPA is planning to run a new high-voltage transmission line between new substations in Castle Rock and Troutdale, Ore., but residents contend the agency should find a less-populated route. Photo Gallery

Demonstrators took to the street in front of Bonneville Power Administration offices in Vancouver on Thursday to amplify their opposition to a proposed high-voltage transmission line cutting a swath through Clark County.

The demonstration, with several dozen sign-waving residents, offered a spirited but polite counterpoint to BPA officials who say the 500-kilovolt line is necessary primarily because of growing demand for electricity in the Portland-Vancouver area. It’s the first major upgrade to the regional transmission system in the area in four decades.

The regional grid is becoming dangerously congested, said Larry Bekkedahl, BPA’s vice president for engineering and technical services.

Bekkedahl told demonstrators that the federal power marketing agency was forced to reroute power during heavy summertime loads twice in the past couple of years. He said the transmission system along the Interstate 5 corridor is growing increasingly congested as population rises in the region, especially due to the increasing use of air conditioning in newer homes in the Northwest. By 2016, he said, Bonneville is projecting the system will hit its limit.

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“Where are you going to roll the blackouts?” he said.

However, residents contend that the line upgrade wouldn’t be necessary were it not for new demands by energy companies outside the region to push electrons between Canada and California.

“We are not denying them their lines,” said Richard van Dijk, an opposition leader from Brush Prairie. “We agree the network is important, but none of this power would benefit any of the residents of Southwest Washington.”

Bonneville has fielded thousands of complaints from neighbors worried about the health effects of an electromagnetic field generated by a line radiating roughly twice as much energy as existing BPA transmission lines crisscrossing the county. Also, the visual prospect of a new power line strung along towers as tall as 150 feet has generated a backlash among thousands of neighbors.

On Thursday, BPA officials and residents engaged in sometimes heated but unfailingly civil discourse outside Bonneville-leased offices in the Van Mall neighborhood.

The group talked and demonstrated for more than an hour between rain showers.

Bekkedahl alternately answered questions and defended against criticism that the agency is oblivious to neighbors’ concerns or motivated by the allure of lucrative electricity sales outside the region.

“We care about the quality of life here in Clark County,” said Bekkedahl, who added that he’s lived in Hazel Dell with his family for the past 14 years.

Neighbors pressed BPA officials to consider alternative routes through largely forested land on the Oregon side of the Columbia River, farther east through mostly state and federal timberland, or underground. The agency expects this summer to narrow relatively wide alternative corridors to more narrowly defined routes where the lines might actually run.

A final decision on the project is currently planned for 2012, with construction to follow after that.

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