Bellevue neighbors vow to fight new PSE power line

Some neighbors in Bellevue are making a last-ditch effort to try and stop the city from allowing Puget Sound Energy to install new power lines in the Lake Hills and Phantom Lake neighborhoods, taking out nearly 300 trees in the process.

Don Marsh, with the Coalition of Eastside Neighborhoods for Sensible Energy, is leading a coalition of residents who argue the project is unnecessary and will create an expensive eyesore along 148th Ave. Southeast

“It’s going to impact a lot of people who use that street, who go to work, go shopping, go to places of worship – there’s a lot of traffic on that street.”

PSE said the project is aimed at improving reliability for more than 12,000 business and residential customers. The utility said the area is vulnerable to lengthy outages and needs backup.

It’s a plan that’s been in the works since 2007, and after a series of public meetings and outreach, the utility settled on a proposed route for the transmission lines in 2011.

Marsh said he’s angry the city determined the proposal did not need to undergo an environmental impact statement.

“They have a quote in their development permit that says this has a potentially significant environmental impact on wetlands, plants and animals, and scenic resources. Then two sentences later, they determined it’s a non-significant impact and so they gave PSE a pass.”

Marsh and his group also worry about costs, which he estimates could be upwards of $40 million.

PSE won’t say how much ratepayers will end up paying for the project.

“It would be nice to know what this is going to cost rate payers,” Marsh said. “We have just taken estimates that we’ve gotten from other projects that say it has cost about $5 million a mile to put in a new overhead line.”

The project opponents also wonder if the overhead lines could be replaced with underground ones to avoid taking out all of the trees.

“We’ve seen, in this decade, incredible advances in technology both in things like grid batteries, for example, which could be very appropriate for a project like this. Also, technology in underground lines has progressed in the past decade and, perhaps, now this would be an option for this.”

But PSE said, in a statement, overhead lines are the preferred option for their combination of reliability and affordability, which keeps the costs down for rate payers.

The Bellevue City Council is scheduled to vote on whether to issue the permit for the project to move forward April 20.

Marsh and his group are vowing a large turnout to protest the proposal.

“It’s a good thing for liability, but it’s going to come at a high cost, as far as these trees and just the character of this major street in Bellevue,” he said.