MID power line project stirs concerns among residents

Residents have flocked to recent board meetings for the Merced Irrigation District to voice concerns about a proposed power line project.

People living near Wardrobe Avenue are concerned the project will drive property values down, raise health risks and create an eyesore.

“If this power line goes in, it is about 40 feet from my master bedroom,” Lesa Prine told the MID board at a meeting last month. “And you’re affecting our livelihood. You’re affecting who we are and how we participate in life, what our property looks like.”

MID in May completed a draft environmental impact report for the project – 13.1 miles of power lines on the outskirts of south Merced, including a substation near Mission Avenue. The district is in the process of publishing a final report.

Most residents say they are not against the project. They are concerned about the power lines’ proximity to their homes and want MID to choose another route.

MID officials said the district has looked at using other routes, but the proposed route had the least environmental impact, according to the report.

Proposed project

A draft environmental impact report outlines some of the project’s objectives including increasing reliability and capacity of MID’s existing distribution center; creating the support for possible new customers; preserving agricultural land; and providing power while considering environmental impact.

According to the report, the power lines would begin at Franklin Road and Highway 99. The route heads south, then cuts east following Rice and Reilly roads. The last stint turns north, ending at a new substation – dubbed the Lyons Substation – on Mission Avenue near Miles Road.

The transmission poles would be 80-95 feet tall, up to 6 feet in diameter, and the foundation would be buried 25 feet underground, the report shows.

In planning since 2011, MID hopes to begin construction on the project in spring 2016 and wrap up around fall 2017.

MID began providing power in 1996. Currently, MID has 8,300 customers from Livingston past Mission Road outside Merced, said Don Ouchley, MID’s deputy general manager of energy resources.

The district received comments on the draft EIR from May up until July 6. Staff is in the midst of organizing the comments so it can provide responses to them. Those responses will be published in the final EIR. Ouchley said MID will make it clear when the EIR is complete so residents have a chance to look through it.

“[The board] could approve it, deny it or continue to look at routes,” Ouchley said.

After the design is complete, the cost of the project will be easier to estimate. For now, MID has a $65 million place holder in its budget for the project. Ouchley said that number is high and predicts the actual cost will be lower.

The money will come from two places, he said. It will come from MID’s energy resources reserve fund and bond financing, pending board approval. MID is not an investor utility company like Pacific Gas and Electric Co., so it will not profit from the project. “Our sole purpose is to serve the customers,” Ouchley said. “The benefits of our service go back to the customer.”

If the board approves the report, MID will go through the bidding process to select contractors.

Resident concerns

Randy and Denise Bertuccio, Allyne Beutel, Kathy Silva and Prine all live on Wardrobe Avenue where the power lines will cross along Franklin Road. Les and Dorothy Van Someren live one street away on Bailey Avenue. Much of the land between residences is farmland and contains irrigation canals.

The power lines will follow the road across from the Bertuccios’ home, crossing Wardrobe Avenue to continue along Silva’s property line. Prine’s bedroom is less than 50 feet from that property line.

According to the report, 89 residences will be within one quarter mile of the power lines on the proposed route. About half of those will be within 300 feet of the power lines. All but two poles will be more than 100 feet from a residence, the report says.

At an MID board meeting Tuesday, Dorothy Van Someren said the power lines will interfere with her husband’s pacemaker. Les Van Someren’s doctor wrote a letter asking MID to take an alternate route so the power lines would not affect his patient’s health.

“I spend all my time trying to take care of him,” Dorothy Van Someren said, “and they’re coming through with something that will hurt him. We feel like someone is taking away our life.”

Many families with children who live along the proposed route are concerned about the power lines causing terminal illnesses, such as cancer. The EIR addresses health risks associated with electromagnetic fields, referencing several studies. The report concluded: “Given the predicted strengths for the proposed line, the potential risks are little different from the risks due to common exposures to household appliances.”

Bertuccio would like the power lines to go underground if no alternative route can be found.

“The aesthetic visual concerns are huge,” he said at an MID board meeting last month. “The board should suggest a route that stays away from as many homes as possible. When I walk out my front door of my home, I will be looking directly at these power lines and poles.”

The report determined that the power lines would have “little effect on the agricultural views from local roads ... [but] the pole placement could affect the appearance of the residences along the local roads.” It also notes that MID has taken several measures to reduce the visual impact, such as using steel that is a dark brown color, allowing greater space between poles thus reducing need for poles, putting poles on the opposite side of the road from residences and avoiding putting poles in front of residences.

Residents also worry that the power lines will decrease their property value.

The power lines run through two areas of land owned by Silva. “They haven’t talked to me at all about compensation,” she said. “With those lines, my property won’t be worth anything.”

Ouchley said MID is “not going to take anybody’s property without compensating them.”

Communication between MID and residents

At the last two MID board meetings, residents addressed the board about the project in the public comment portion of the meeting. Since the issue was not on the agenda, board members did not respond to the comments or discuss the project.

“If you want to be a good neighbor, prove it. Let’s start a dialogue,” Beutel told board members at Tuesday’s meeting.

MID held two public, project-related meetings in the past – one in March 2012 and one in August 2013.

Mike Jensen, a spokesman for MID, said there have been numerous conversations between MID officials and citizens interested in the project for years.

Bertuccio and his neighbors said they are not against the project, they just don’t want it by their homes. According to the EIR: “The transmission line alternatives would result in more significant environmental impacts than the proposed project.”

Two of the three proposed routes run through MID board director Scott Koehn’s division, and neighbors have addressed the issue with him. He said it is a difficult issue for him to consider. “I think … it is a very worthwhile, valuable and needed project, not only for MID, but for the community,” he said. “My job is to make sure the process is followed.”

“These are not only my neighbors, they’re my friends,” he said. “I have to wear both hats of someone in that neighborhood who knows these people very well, and also as a director of MID who considers impacts on the district and community in the short and long term.”

Ouchley said all of the written comments MID has received will be addressed in the final EIR.

“We do understand that people will be impacted by the project,” he said. “We’ve done the best we can to consider that.”

This story has been corrected from an earlier version.

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 6:33 PM with the headline "MID power line project stirs concerns among residents."