RCI lends a hand to Kirkwood and PG&E power efforts

RCI recently began environmental impact work for PG&E’s Salt Springs Powerhouse to its service area in Kirkwood, California. Kirkwood Meadows Public Utility District is proposing to construct a power line from PG&E’s Salt Springs Powerhouse to its service area in Kirkwood, California.

The proposed project would involve the Eldorado National Forest authorizing a 50-year term special use permit for the construction, use and maintenance of power line connecting the Public Utilities District – in Alpine, Amador and El Dorado Counties — to an existing transmission line owned by Pacific Gas & Electric Company near the PG&E hydroelectric facility at Salt Springs Reservoir, in Amador County.

“The initial proposals included cross-country overhead lines in a roadless area and people were understandably upset about that,” said Lynn Zonge, Hydrologist / Fluvial Geomorphologist at Resource Concepts, Inc. “The current, refined proposal has eliminated all of the cross-country routes.”

RCI is preparing the Environmental Impact Statement and other permit application documents for Kirkwood Meadows Public Utility District. The draft statement is scheduled to be available for public review in the summer 2010, and construction on the project is scheduled to be completed in 2012.