Dive Summary:
- A small California city is flexing big muscle to fight 3.5 miles of high-voltage power lines that Southern California plans to build throughout the city.
- Residents of Chino Hills say the lines would be too close to homes, thereby compromising health and safety and reducing homeowners' property values. A growing opposition is demanding SoCalEdison to build the lines underground.
- But the utility says burying the lines is too expensive and will raise the project cost from $170 million to $893 million. The Chino Hills power lines are a part of the utility's $2.1 billion Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project, to carry wind-generated electricity from Kern County to the Los Angeles Basin.
From the article:
“’I think the protest is interesting, but I think the fact that the issue now is there are 250 households along 3.5-miles that want these towers undergrounded but there are 12 million people in California from Mount Shasta to San Diego who are going to have to split the bill,"’Edison spokeswoman Kit Cole said earlier this month.”