Western Area Power Administration January 29, 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Western Area Power Administration (Western) intends to construct the Trinity Public Utilities District (PUD) Direct Interconnection Project (Project) in Trinity County, California. Consumers in the Trinity PUD service area routinely experience nearly 20,000 consumer hours per year in outages, according to the Trinity PUD. In the winter, many of the outages last three to four days before power can be restored. Western's Project would improve power system reliability in the area by providing a direct interconnection between Trinity PUD and Western's transmission system at the Trinity Power Plant. Western proposes to remove about 5.3 miles of existing 12- kilovolt (kV) distribution line, and construct, operate, and maintain about 16 miles of new 60-kV transmission line, a three-way switching structure and associated equipment, and a new switchyard. The Project would connect to Trinity PUD's system at its Lewiston Substation and at the new Weaverville Switchyard. Western is the lead Federal agency, and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) are cooperating agencies that participated in the preparation of the environmental impact statement (EIS). Full implementation of the decision to construct this Project is contingent upon obtaining all applicable permits and approvals.