October 3, 2012: 11:11am

Montana Standard

Written on August 22, 2012 at 3:45 pm by Ben Coulter

VIRGINIA CITY – At their regular meeting on Tuesday the Madison County Commissioners met with representatives from the Mountain States Transmission Intertie Review Project to receive final project reports and discuss their experience with and interpretation of the review process.

The meeting began with a short video presented by Cameron Ellis of the Sonoran Institute. The short film outlined the history and timeline of the project, and reiterated the purpose of the MSTI Review Project to identify the impacts of the proposed power line as well as alternative routes.

“Our hope is that anybody who starts reading the reports will also go to the website,” said Ellis. “If there are issues that arise and people have questions about the report, we can put our responses there.”

Project coordinator Monique DiGiorgio with the Western Environmental Law Center explained that the 200-page final report consists of an overall summary of the project before going into individual reports with specific, detailed information about impacts to community values, wildlife, local economies, tax revenues and property values. Each sub-report within the final document also includes a two-page overview summary.

“It’s hard in five minutes to try to explain the project and have it come across in a way that people are getting it,” DiGiorgio said.

DiGiorgio said the website for the project, www.mstireviewproject.org, will be used to further explain the project findings and clarify any questions people may have. Project members are also filming video testimonials for the website from different organizations and stakeholders to show reactions to and opinions on the review process.

“We’re going to basically revamp the whole site, because right now if you go to it it really explains the different elements of the project, but we’re going to change that around so that the interviews are front and center, the reports are front and center, whatever else you might want to put up there,” she said.

Commissioner Dan Happel commended the project members who were present for their hard work and dedication to making the MSTI review process a transparent one.

“The reality is that there are a lot of people that don’t trust environmental groups to protect private property, and that’s the one thing that we came away from this with is that you guys really stepped forward and said ‘Yes, we want to protect private property and we want that to be one of the top priorities if not the top priority,” said Happel. “Frankly I went into this with the idea that I was going to have to be a protector of the citizens of Madison County and that you guys were going to be adversarial to us, and it hasn’t worked that way and I’m very pleased with that.”

DiGiorgio reflected on what the review team learned from the project and what the next step in moving forward might be.

“I think there are some lessons learned that we’ve all experienced in terms of the value of what we did, and that it was possible to actually have a transparent process that was meaningful in terms of really taking the communities perspective and putting that spatially into something we could give to DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality),” DiGiorgio said. “We’re thinking in terms of next steps from a broader perspective. There is a ton of information now, obviously, that we have that’s available for you guys to continue using whether it’s the MSTI line or another line.”

“There is a lot of value in what we’ve done regardless of it being the MSTI line,” DiGiorgio continued. “I very much doubt that this is the end of the transmission dialogue in southwest Montana.”

http://www.madisoniannews.com/commissioner-get-wrap-up-on-msti-review-project/

Bozeman Daily Chronicle – June 18, 2012

By Dan Happel, Leonard Wortman, and Tom Rice, guest columnists

Written on June 8, 2012 at 11:23 am by Ben Coulter

BUTTE – Local government officials and members of the community gathered at Montana Tech in Butte on Friday for the release of detailed reports from the Mountain States Transmission Intertie Review Project, which has conducted an independent analysis of the potential impacts of a proposed 500-kilovolt transmission line stretching from Townsend to Jerome, Idaho. READ MORE.

Report Assesses Community, Wildlife Trade-offs of Line :: Phil Taylor, E&E reporter

Published: Tuesday, June 5, 2012

A coalition of counties and nonprofit groups has assessed the costs and benefits of building a high-voltage power line through Montana and Idaho that could provide a critical conduit for new commercial wind farms.

Officials from the MSTI Review Project — a collaboration of Montana’s Madison and Jefferson counties, the Western Environmental Law Center, Headwaters Economics, the Sonoran Institute, the Craighead Institute and Future West — presented their findings this weekend to county commissioners in Pocatello, Idaho, and Butte, Mont. They are scheduled to meet today with Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D).

The project analyzed the potential trade-offs of the proposed Mountain States Transmission Intertie, a 430-mile line that would carry 1,500 megawatts, much of it renewable wind power, from central Montana to the Midpoint substation in southern Idaho.

The project developed wildlife and community maps that rank impacts to private property, hunting and fishing, agriculture and scenic views while considering residential density, existing infrastructure and wildlife habitat. The results are designed to aid local, state and federal planners.

“They’re looking for good information,” said Julia Haggerty, a policy analyst at Bozeman, Mont.-based Headwaters Economics, noting that the project does not make specific proposals. “At the end of the day, elected officials will obviously come to their own conclusions.”

The MSTI line in past years has encountered stiff opposition from landowners and elected officials who argue residents should not have to sacrifice scenic views and property values for a project designed to export electricity out of state (Greenwire, Aug. 24, 2011).

Planning for the line stalled in 2010 after Jefferson County successfully sued, charging the state had violated Montana law by failing to adequately consult with the county on its evaluation of a preferred route for the line. The state’s Supreme Court last October reversed the lower court’s ruling.

While first proposed by NorthWestern Energy in 2008, the project has yet to receive a draft environment impact statement from the Interior Department and Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality, the first of many regulatory steps. The draft review, initially expected this spring, is now scheduled for November, according to Cameron Ellis of the Sonoran Institute.

Haggerty said county stakeholders are most concerned about the line’s potential impacts on property tax revenues and property values.

But there is significant uncertainty over how much property tax revenue the line would generate in Montana, which sets rates in large part based on what kind of energy is being carried. Haggerty said the rate at which market value is assessed could vary from 1.5 percent to 12 percent, an uncertainty that could hinder decisionmaking.

“When people evaluate these lines, they’re looking for a level of certainty about what kind of energy they’re going to carry,” she said. “We’re really not in the kind of policy environment that supports that kind of certainty.”

Ellis said community mapping workshops this winter revealed that stakeholders value defending private property, agriculture and residential land uses and believe the line should be mostly on public lands and be co-located near existing infrastructure.

He said residents also acknowledge the constraints to building the line on public lands that are protected as wilderness, have high conservation value or are too rugged. He said there are still disagreements over the uses of lands, including Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho.

“Our process is not going to be a magic bullet,” Ellis said.

Contact: Monique DiGiorgio, Coordinator, 406-548-1592

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 31, 2012

Counties, Local Groups Release MSTI Findings

Independent Review Analyzed Need, Impact, and Potential Transmission Line Corridors

The MSTI Review Project—a collaboration between county commissioners and local non-governmental organizations—today released an independent review of the potential impacts of the proposed Mountain States Transmission Intertie (MSTI) line on local communities in Montana and Idaho.  MSTI, a 500kv transmission line, proposed by NorthWestern Energy, would run from Townsend, MT to Jerome, ID.

The research findings of the Review Project, to be presented at briefings for county commissioners and the public in Pocatello, Idaho and Butte, Montana on May 31 and June 1, focused on information such as the purpose and need for the line, what the line might carry, who will pay for it, and tax and property value impacts.

READ MORE.