Vi+
05-24-2006, 14:53
(T)he Department of Energy and Bureau of Land Management will approve thousands of miles of new power line and pipeline corridors on federal lands across the West in the next 14 months. The energy easements are likely to cross national parks, forests and military bases as well as other public land.
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(P)roposed corridors in (California) ... across Death Valley, Joshua Tree and Lassen Volcanic national parks as well as the Mojave National Preserve, several military bases, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and seven national forests.
Elsewhere, routes near Moab, Utah, the Cascades and Rocky Mountains have been proposed, some up to five miles wide and 2,000 miles long.
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The legislation was designed to fast-track construction by requiring a single, overarching environmental review of the effect of dozens of energy corridors across federal land. The aim is to avoid time-consuming project-by-project reviews. Federal energy regulators were also given authority to designate power lines in the "national interest," which would allow them to overrule federal agencies or states or counties that withheld approval for segments of projects.
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(A)n environmental study of the arid Southwest scheduled for the hot summer months, many species would not be documented because plants will have died back and animals will be underground.
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Although power lines appear to sail through the air, every 160-foot-tall pylon is built on a concrete pad with a spur road connecting to a longer maintenance road, creating an artificial barrier across the fragile desert floor.
* Excerpted from The Los Angeles Times, May 23, 2006, “Power Lines and Pipelines Draw Closer to Parklands,” Janet Wilson.
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(P)roposed corridors in (California) ... across Death Valley, Joshua Tree and Lassen Volcanic national parks as well as the Mojave National Preserve, several military bases, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and seven national forests.
Elsewhere, routes near Moab, Utah, the Cascades and Rocky Mountains have been proposed, some up to five miles wide and 2,000 miles long.
...
The legislation was designed to fast-track construction by requiring a single, overarching environmental review of the effect of dozens of energy corridors across federal land. The aim is to avoid time-consuming project-by-project reviews. Federal energy regulators were also given authority to designate power lines in the "national interest," which would allow them to overrule federal agencies or states or counties that withheld approval for segments of projects.
...
(A)n environmental study of the arid Southwest scheduled for the hot summer months, many species would not be documented because plants will have died back and animals will be underground.
...
Although power lines appear to sail through the air, every 160-foot-tall pylon is built on a concrete pad with a spur road connecting to a longer maintenance road, creating an artificial barrier across the fragile desert floor.
* Excerpted from The Los Angeles Times, May 23, 2006, “Power Lines and Pipelines Draw Closer to Parklands,” Janet Wilson.