The Community Advisory Committee, working with Idaho Power to develop a “Wood River Electrical Plan,” held its sixth meeting during the last week of June. My five previous reports are available here (#5), here (#4), here (#3), here (#2), and here (#1).
The purpose of the project is to create a clear and documented electrical energy plan to serve the load needs of the Wood River Valley from now through build out.
During the sixth meeting the Committee worked on screening the alternative scenarios we previously developed to determine a consensus recommendation for the most feasible alternative for each section of the planning area and for the overall plan. Using criteria and goals discussed in my previous reports, we narrowed the recommendations for three areas: 1) the southern transmission stations of Midpoint (near Shoshone) and King (near Hagerman) up to the Bellevue triangle area, 2) the Bellevue triangle area to the Wood River Transmission station (just north of Hailey), and 3) from Wood River Transmission station to the Ketchum/Sun Valley Substation (next to the Sun Valley Red Barn).
138 kV Transmission Line 
Twin 138 kV Underground Lines
We spent a great deal of time discussing the costs of each alternative, the costs of undergrounding versus above ground lines, the costs of easements, the environmental impacts, the visual impacts, and probably the most important factor, the need for additional lines in relationship to growth, demand, reliability and redundancy. Idaho Power and its engineers will now take our work and hammer out these issues in relationship to the alternatives we formulated. We will meet again in a couple of months to review their findings and see if a draft report will be in an acceptable condition to present to the public this fall. This will then lead to a whole round of public meetings and full public discussion and input on the recommendation.
The recent “Red Bridge Fire” near Shoshone took out a portion of the Midpoint Transmission station and then the transmission line to Hailey. Here is a good article from the Associated Press on the fire and what it did to Midpoint (it appeared in the Idaho Press-Tribune). It points to the vulnerability we face here in the Wood River Valley. For several days during and after the fire we were being supplied by the King transmission line only, a line built in 1962 and not capable of handling our entire load in peak conditions. In the north end of the valley, we only have the one line from Hailey to the Ketchum/Sun Valley Substation. There is no redundancy or backup for that line. Our peak load up here is in the winter. One can only imagine what an extended outage would do to the health and safety of our north valley in the cold of the winter, not to mention the economy.
As always, I will continue to report on our progress and you can also follow it at the Wood River Electrical Plan website provided by Idaho Power. The website has a great deal of information, including copies of all the presentations and minutes of our meetings.
* * * Added Bonus * * *
The Sun Valley Fire Department assisted in fighting the “Red Bridge Fire” and two of our men, Ray Franco and Joe Richardson made the cover of the Twin Falls Times-News in an excellent photo with one of our engines.
