Public meetings to discuss about 70 miles of huge new power transmission lines through Shasta County will be held tonight in Burney, Monday in Chico and April 13 in Redding.
The plan is part of a $1.5 billion, 600-mile transmission line project stretching from Lassen County near the Nevada border and south through the Central Valley. It would split west to the San Francisco Bay area and east to the Sierra foothills, ending in Santa Clara and Stanislaus counties. A new substation is proposed near Round Mountain in Shasta County, shown on a map of the project on the Western Area Power Administration's Web site.
If approved after a years-long environmental review process, the transmission lines and their towers would stretch across new areas of Shasta County, not along the paths of existing transmission, said Transmission Agency of Northern California (TANC) board member Paul Hauser, who also serves as director of the Redding Electric Utility.
"So it will be a significant difference in appearance, with lines where people are not used to seeing lines," he said.
http://www.redding.com/news/2009/mar/31/huge-new-power-line-project-planned-for-north/