Many speak against Energize Eastside
It was an impressive showing of about 200 people speaking against the Eastside Energy (PSE)’s project proposals to build high-powered energy lines above our neighborhoods from Redmond and Kirkland to Renton. This project proposes to answer future energy. Those speaking tonight questioned the accuracy of the study for energy needs, safety issues, such as building near gas lines, and hidden costs to citizens from accidents, taxes used to send electricity to Canada, and home devaluation, from pole and wire eyesore to loss of our beautiful Bellevue trees and wildlife in our neighborhoods (currently happening in south Bellevue as stated in past Bellevue Reporter letters).
It was great to have the EIS meetings for citizens to speak out; it just seems it should have come a little sooner as there was great expertise tonight. I do hope the resounding comments tonight are heard by all city council members effected by this proposal. We need to see more data and not just go ahead with a possible unneeded project that could cost citizens money and safety in the long wrong.
Thank you to all who spoke and for those who donated to the cense project. I think we all will be keeping an eye on this project. For more information, contact PSE for their eye view and look at the CENSE.org website.
Marlene Meyer
PSE analysis for more transmission capacity need is ‘incomplete’
PSE’s studies that show a need for Energize Eastside assume that no local generation plants are operating during an infrequent arctic winter event. This is an unrealistic assumption, because many of those generators were acquired by the company to serve exactly this scenario. The report by the Independent Technical Analyst studied a scenario where about half the generators were turned on, and it found that the need for Energize Eastside was reduced, but not eliminated. We would like a study that shows what happens when all the generators are turned on. This is the normal way to conduct such a study, so we’re not asking for anything unusual.
PSE’s studies also assume a huge amount of power is being transmitted to Canada. Canada doesn’t need this power, and could be compensated in other ways. Bellevue’s analyst studied what would happen if no electricity was flowing to Canada during these emergencies, and concluded that 80 percent of the system overloads would disappear. We ask ColumbiaGrid to explain why PSE’s customers are exclusively responsible for paying for Canada’s electrical service.
Finally, we remind PSE and ColumbiaGrid that they are required to plan the grid as if it belonged to one utility. There is already an under-utilized 230 kV transmission line through the Eastside. ColumbiaGrid identified it as the best choice to serve Canadian electricity. However, this option was inexplicably taken ssoff the table when PSE said they wanted to build a second 230 kV transmission line, parallel to the first one, about a mile to the east. This is not something a single utility could justify, and therefore it is not allowable under current regulations.
The letter gives PSE until May 22 to respond. If the deadline is not met, or the response is not reasonable, further actions are planned that will become increasingly uncomfortable for PSE.
Steve O’Donnell,
President Coalition of Eastside Neighborhoods for Sensible Energy (CENSE)
Larry G. Johnson,
President, Citizens for Sane Eastside Energy (CSEE
Energize project needs new independent load forecast
The “independent” analysis of PSE’s Energize Eastside (EE) Project, performed by the City of Bellevue’s consultant, U. S. E., was disappointing in that it did not include a new independent load forecast for the Eastside. What the consultant did was a review of the work PSE had done and found it to be reasonable. However, important information was presented in the report about the location of the load growth driving the need for the EE Project. It should be to no one’s surprise that this growth is the commercial load located primarily in downtown Bellevue and in the Bel-Red Corridor. But the area with the growth is NOT the area that will be impacted if the EE project as now planned is built.
This begs the question as to how the downtown load will be supplied from the EE Project. I have not seen any PSE plans for delivering power from the EE Project to the load in downtown Bellevue. Perhaps the downtown load can be served more directly from the Sammamish and Talbot Hill Substations, preferably underground, as an alternative to building a 230 kV line through areas not providing the load growth driving the need for the line. Such an alternative should be addressed in the EE Project EIS that is just being scoped.
Hal Mozer
