Oct. 26, 2012 – The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Western Area Power Administration have published a new newsletter outlining their activities and next steps in preparing an Environmental Impact Statement for the TransWest Express Transmission Project. BLM and Western are the joint lead federal agencies preparing the EIS, in collaboration with multiple federal, state and local cooperating agencies.

The October 2012 newsletter is available on the BLM project website, which hosts a range of NEPA-related documents including a project description, the Public Scoping Summary Report, maps, past newsletter issues, agency contact information and other data.

According to the October newsletter, following public scoping and in consultation with cooperating agencies, “some alternative corridors were eliminated from consideration... Additional alternative corridors emerged as reasonable considerations for analysis.” TransWest Express LLC’s proposed corridor for the TWE Project remains the same. The 725-mile proposed corridor is located on federal land and within existing linear corridors as much as possible.

The newsletter notes the agencies “anticipate the Draft EIS will be available for a public review in late spring 2013.” It also outlines the TWE Project’s selection last October as a Rapid Response Team for Transmission project.

The TWE Project is a 600 kV, direct current transmission line designed to facilitate renewable energy delivery from Wyoming to the southwestern United States, while providing an important regional upgrade to the western U.S. power grid. The project will interconnect with the existing transmission grid near Sinclair, Wyo., and the Marketplace Hub in Boulder City, Nev.

# # #