Energy right of way proposed

Energy right of way proposed

July 31, 2006

— Potential energy corridors spider across the land, but will landowners be affected?
Innovative ways to effectively and economically transmit energy across the West are stirring controversy among landowners. A map was recently released, showing energy transmission routes, or corridors, across the West. Although economics is at the forefront of the decision making, and the possible establishment of a more secure and stable energy infrastructure for the U.S., the issue with landowners and ranchers is the claim that they have yet to be involved in the planning and preliminary research to any great extent.

While this coordinated system of energy corridors across the West has been compared in scope and importance to the Interstate Highway system, one organization is gritting its teeth in frustration.

Laurie Goodman of the Landowners Association of Wyoming said the state and federal governments need to work hard to make sure landowners’ rights are being considered. In Wyoming, private landowners own 47 percent of the land, Goodman said, and they want to be involved in this process.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 charged the secretaries of Energy, Agriculture, Interior, Commerce and Defense to designate corridors for oil, gas and hydrogen pipelines and electricity transmission facilities on federal land in the eleven contiguous western states. In order to implement the Act and designate the corridors, the U.S. Department of Energy, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and U.S. Forest Service (USFS), in cooperation with the Departments of Commerce and Defense, are working together to prepare a West-wide Energy Corridor Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS).

The planning requirements provide a comprehensive analysis and identification of West-wide Energy Corridors, as well as an analysis of alternatives that meet energy supply and demand needs. The agencies involved will also include a cumulative impact statement of implementing the energy corridors, as well as providing a level of analysis and procedure that allows individual BLM and USFS land use plans to be amended or revised with approval of the respective agency.

The first draft of the map shows the corridors from a 100,000-foot view, with the majority of corridors on federal land, avoiding sensitive and no-go areas.

These energy corridors are marked out on the map at a width of 3,500 feet.

“Do you know how much land that is?” Goodman asked. “These 3,500-foot wide corridors, for just one mile in length, comes to a total of 424.24 acres!” That is a great deal of land that, at this point, could be removed from public lands grazing permits, crippling cattle producers across the West. Grazing permits would have to be amended, exchanged, or eliminated all together.

Heather Feeney, BLM spokesman said, “This 3,500 feet is a working width. An interagency project team is working on this, four agencies, so it is pretty complicated. But we have started with the assumption of this width because of the Energy Policy Act, section 368, which was designed so that more than one project can be located along these right-of-way corridors.”

The fact that many ranchers run their cattle on federal land grazing allotments is yet another one of the challenges the PEIS is going to address, Feeney said. “Whatever alternatives are needed, they will be included in the PEIS.” Once the draft is passed and the final is confirmed, a record of decision would amend land use plans for BLM and USFS.
“The EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) process is designed so that impact to other land uses such as grazing, recreation, wildlife, etc., are all taken into account. That’s why this process is so complicated,” Feeney said. “The goal is to take energy from where it is now to where it is needed, and the best route is a straight line, which is not always possible. This PEIS is only on federal land. We only have the power under Section 368 for federal land, not state land, tribal, or private land. We are suggesting alternative routes to minimize impact or potential impact on the land itself.”

Even though the final record of decision is scheduled to be completed next summer, “These are only designated on paper. Once EIS is complete, they aren’t going to start clearing the corridors, nothing will happen until people come forward to build energy transmission lines, or something.” Feeney said.

In regard to the agencies involved in this process, “They are looking at every foot of land, and the land uses of each. We are getting knowledge from local land offices,” Feeney said.

Goodman is still concerned about the potential to lose land use allotments. “How much of a grazing operation can cattle producers handle if they lose grazing allotments?” On the Oregon energy corridor map draft, the energy corridor follows Highway 95 down the southeast corner of the state, right through land that is almost entirely used by cattlemen grazing their cattle on the Owyhee high desert. From Washington, DC, the map looks pretty barren and empty, but on the ground level, individual cattlemen could be getting hurt, and potentially losing land.
“The frustrating thing to me is that all of the information on this says these corridors will only be on federal land, but in Wyoming and Colorado, and I expect across much of the rest of the West, private land lays right along next to the federal. State eminent domain laws come into play,” Goodman said. “If you are a poor rancher, a minimum one-time payment may not be an option. I’ve seen land in Wyoming that has been literally condemned for grazing land forever.”

Goodman continued, “While the potential of economic growth in Wyoming is necessary and exciting for us in Wyoming to finally export our energy, we have no problem with the intent, but we have a problem with how it will affect landowners.”

Once the West-wide Energy Corridor PEIS is completed, each agency will amend its respective information to designate the energy corridors and then incorporate the designated corridors into land use and management plans. The final record of decision will be signed August 2007, just two years after the process started. After the West-wide Energy Corridor project is completed, the same agencies will work on a similar map and decision for the eastern U.S.

Public involvement in the Energy Corridor PEIS process is scheduled through the course of two years. The public scoping, or open comment period, lasted for sixty days and ended Nov. 28, 2005. Currently, the agencies are composing the draft of the PEIS which will be published in draft form for public examination and comment period sometime this fall. The final draft is expected to be published next spring.

The BLM is urging all concerned people to be involved, eager for comments and help now, to make the plan better in the future. For more information and an electronic version of the proposed map, as well as individual state maps, log onto the West-wide Energy Corridor Web site: http://corridoreis.anl.gov. Another option would to talk to local BLM field offices. Their Lands and Realty branches have a great deal of information concerning the Section 368 Energy Corridor Designation.

“This is not a matter of saying no to the Energy Corridors,” Goodman said, “but given that this is such a bold, huge corridor, we need to think bold for compensation for the landowners.” — Amy Wegner Kho, WLJ Associate Editor

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