The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) has dropped plans to build an $800 million 85-mile-long Green Path North Transmission Line across desert wilderness preserves and scenic ridgelines. The utility came up with the idea and the mayor ended it due to environmental and community group opposition.The Center generally supports these high power transmission lines because they are needed for reliability in electricity delivery. Green power projects will also not be built if the power lines do not exist to transport the power.
The DWP submitted a right-of-way grant application to the U.S. Forest Service in 2007 for the project, designed to bring electricity generated by solar, geothermal, wind and nuclear power to Los Angeles from the southeastern California deserts and Arizona. Environmental and community groups were outraged by the DWP's plans to route high-voltage lines and 16-story towers through the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve north of Palm Springs, Pioneertown near Yucca Valley, Pipes Canyon Wilderness Preserve and a corner of the San Bernardino National Forest before linking with existing DWP power lines in Hesperia. Home to bighorn sheep and chuckwallas, the preserves are internationally recognized birding hot spots embroidered with trails and streams that run under canopies of willow and cottonwood trees. (L.A.Times, 3/11/10)
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