Roughly 200 residents in the southeast Bend neighborhood of Sundance opposed Pacific Power’s plan to route a high power transmission line through the southeast corner of their community.

Sundance, a registered Firewise USA community that has taken steps to reduce risk of wildland fires, submitted a letter to Deschutes County Commission, Pacific Power and state lawmakers urging that another site be selected for the new 500-kilovolt line erected on steel, lattice-style towers that will be 160 to 180 feet tall.

The towers require a 250-foot-wide right of way, meaning no structures can be within 125 feet from its center line. The distance between each tower will be 800 to 1,400 feet.

For resident Oliver Tatom, the power lines are a big risk for fire — something that he is all too familiar with. In 1996, his childhood home in the neighborhood was among 19 that burned down in the Skeleton Fire.

“Given the number of destructive wildfires that have been attributed to power lines during high wind events over the last several years, PacifiCorp’s proposal to build high-voltage transmission lines so close to a neighborhood that still bears the scars of wildfire, and which the state has identified as a high hazard area, is absolutely bonkers,” said Tatom, who is a member of the board of directors for the Deschutes County Rural Fire District #2.

The proposed route is one of four proposed by Pacific Power that would cut across Central Oregon. At the same time, the Bonneville Power Administration is also proposing a 500-kilovolt line across parts of Oregon and Washington to accommodate regional load growth and enable BPA to add thousands of megawatts of wind and solar generation and battery storage to its system, according to a press statement.

“This line is needed to reinforce PacifiCorp’s Oregon electrical grid,” said Simon Gutierrez, a Pacific Power spokesman. “Customer load demands in Oregon are steadily increasing and will eventually surpass the capacity of our current 500-kilovolt lines. Adding an additional line at this voltage allows us to provide safe, reliable power with greater redundancy well into the future.”

The power company wants to avoid putting power lines through densely populated areas, Gutierrez said. The goal is to balance cost to customers with impact to the region, he said.

According to project plans published by Pacific Power, the lines will run for around 180 miles across Central Oregon. Construction could begin as early as 2030 and be completed by 2032. The Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council is the agency charged with reviewing permits and approving the location of the transmission lines.

“Undergrounding lines also brings additional environmental impacts to the environment due to the amount of effort required to excavate a several hundred foot deep and wide trench to build the facilities that would house and protect an underground line,” Gutierrez said.

Phil Chang, Deschutes County commissioner, said that the value to these lines would be felt far and wide.

“From my perspective, I take issue from the point of view that this line won’t benefit these folks,” Chang said. “We need this additional transmission, additional generation to serve Central and south Central Oregon because we have population growth, new data centers, AI coming online and a bunch of people shifting to electric vehicles. The demand for electricity across our region is increasing from business and homes.”

Resident Todd Towell said that the community learned about the transmission line March 1 and needed to respond by the end of the month. Towell felt that the time wasn’t nearly enough to become educated on the impact the power lines might have on her neighborhood.

“I realize that this may not end up being their choice,” Towell said. “When we bought this house in 2020 we did not buy it with a high power transmission line in our site line. It could affect the resale value.”

Similarly, Jim Moran, a real estate broker in Bend and a homeowner in the community, worried about the effects of the transmission lines on property values. A resident of the community for two decades, Moran felt the power company needed to review other options.

“We’re waiting on our county commissioners to see what they say,” Moran said. “At the end of the day, it’s nutty to have this kind of disruption for all of us.”