Sams Valley, Ore., — “My wife and I are angry. A lot of the neighbors are angry.”
Stuart Lahtinen and his wife Karen moved to Sams Valley a few years ago.
They bought the house they live in for the views, and recently renovated it.
But that was before they knew Pacific Power was planning to build a new sub station across the road.
“Our house is roughly 175 feet from the boundary of the substation, and we’re only maybe 600 feet from the transformers.”
Pacific Power says the 80 million dollar project will improve reliability for 70 thousand customers.
“If we were to lose one source with our transmission feed, we could potentially have to shed some customers at some point, so the federal entities have come to us and basically said you have the statutory obligation to build this substation, and upgrade the transmission line to ensure that doesn’t happen.”
Pacific Power Regional Business Manager, Monte Mendenhall says the Highway 234 and Tresham Lane location was the best option out of 20 sites.
“Part of the reason why this was the least cost is because we’re gonna be able to utilize existing corridors basically to build this, so you aren’t gonna have much of an impact as far as transmission lines that they’ll be looking at sort of thing.”
And thinks the public will agree.
“You’re gonna have people that are actually gonna be benefiting from this particular project, because it is needed for service reliability and you’re talking particular to Josephine County, Jackson County and even Del Norte County California would be impacted by this.”
But Lahtinen disagrees, he’s even leading a neighborhood wide campaign against the project.
“It’s gonna be a monstrous industrial development in whats essentially a residential, or rural residential area and it’s grossly inappropriate.”
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