Golden Pacific Powerlink: New Routes, Continued Concerns

From Save Our Heritage Organisation

In June of this year, we first alerted you to this issue and asked for your help. SDG&E has released new information about its proposed Golden Pacific Powerlink transmission project, including three alternative routes, and has announced a series of community open houses. This is an important opportunity to learn more, ask questions, and make your concerns known.

The Golden Pacific Powerlink is a proposed 150-mile, 500-kilovolt transmission corridor. extending from the Imperial Valley to Orange County. With an estimated cost of $1.62 billion, it would be SDG&E’s largest capital project and the longest 500-kilovolt transmission line in its service territory.

It is important to understand that these lines would simply transmit SDG&E’s power to Orange County and the Los Angeles area. They would provide no electricity to anywhere in San Diego County, yet SDG&E customers would shoulder part of the financial burden.

All of the proposed transmission lines would be above ground, with towers that could reach approximately 200 feet in height.

As Save Temecula has stated and we concur: “California has the technology and expertise to lead the nation in modern infrastructure. There are numerous alternatives to spending billions of ratepayer dollars on massive overhead extra-high-voltage transmission lines that will be outdated by the time they are completed. We should be advancing safer, smarter, less destructive alternatives, not defaulting to century-old models that impose enormous costs on ratepayers, residents, communities, and the environment.”

The project still requires approval from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and remains in the early stages of environmental and regulatory review. The final route has not been determined.

Now is the time to speak up.

SDG&E has now released its preferred route along with three alternative routes. One alternative would reduce the project’s footprint within Anza-Borrego Desert State Park by approximately nine miles by routing the line through Borrego Springs instead. Another would bypass Temecula by shifting a portion of the route south along Palomar Mountain.

While these alternatives demonstrate that routing options exist, they also demonstrate that shifting the route can simply shift the impacts from one community or landscape to another.

SOHO urges SDG&E and the CPUC to pursue alternatives that genuinely avoid protected public lands and irreplaceable historic and cultural resources.

For background and more details about the project and its potential impacts, please read SOHO’s original Golden Pacific Powerlink Preservation Action Alert.