Keep project on older routes
We’re learning more and more about how the Bonneville Power Administration’s I-5 Corridor Reinforcement Project will impact families, business and the environment. At a recent meeting in Amboy, BPA project manager Mark Korsness confirmed that the existing right of way of routes 9 and 25 was acquired and designed for expansion 70 years ago, and it is assumed to be less costly to ratepayer and taxpayers to build the project on these routes. In addition, the BPA will have to purchase 1,273 acres of land for the project if an eastern route is chosen, building miles of new access roads across private properties, family farms, sensitive wetlands and wildlife habitat. In contrast, properties adjacent to routes 9 and 25 have been impacted for decades. The BPA may need to purchase square feet in only four locations.
All Eastern BPA routes are populated. The impact on people’s property, the environment, and the huge difference in cost of the project by building this project on any eastern route is a bad idea. The smart move, the fiscally responsible move, is to build the new project where it was designed to go in the first place, on routes 9 and 25.
Cheryl Brantley
Yacolt
