R-Project interrupted

An approximate 220-mile, 345,000 volt transmission line, known as the R-Project was unplugged last week.

Wednesday's ruling by U.S. District Judge William J. Martinez, of Denver, overturns a 2019 "incidental take permit" issued to Nebraska Public Power District, regarding the project's potential impact on the environment.

The route will begin at NPPD's Gerald Gentleman Station, near Sutherland, and run northeast to Thedford. There, it will connect to an expanded substation, before swerving east and north, where it will end in Holt County.

A new substation is scheduled to be built on the Antelope-Holt-Wheeler County lines.

The judge's ruling cites three reasons for its decision.

Martinez said NPPD failed to evaluate "potential wind turbine development in Antelope County, "inadequately considered the effects of the R-Project on the O'Fallon's Bluff segment of the Oregon and California Trail" near Sutherland, and fell short when considering the impact construction could have on the endangered American burying beetle.

The order reverts decisions on the project to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

NPPD President and CEO Tom Kent said, on Thursday, the court agreed with the majority of the analysis by the Fish and Wildlife.

Kent said the project is important for Nebraskans and will improve the state's electrical system.

According to NPPD, the project's benefits are threefold. It will increase reliability of the utility provider's system, relieve congestion from existing lines and offer opportunities for renewable energy at the local level.

Martinez's order does not permanently halt construction, but it did find credibility in a challenge filed by the Hanging H East and Whitetail Farms East ranches, between Paxton and Sutherland, the Oregon-California Trails Association and the Western Nebraska Resources Council.

In a lawsuit filed July 5, 2019, challengers allege Fish and Wildlife's granting of an incidental take permit did not address observance of federal laws.

Martinez chastised both sides, citing a lack of developed arguments, however he agreed that Fish and Wildlife officials needs to review the project's effects on historic spots along the route.

He referred to a March 2016 email from the National Park Service warning Fish and Wildlife officials that the project would "cross the Mormon Pioneer, California, Oregon and Pony Express national historic trails at a particularly sensitive location."

The park service suggested an alternate wrote that "would cross the trail corridor in places where the trail and its setting already have been compromised or destroyed," Martinez wrote, quoting the original email, in the 116-Page opinion.

The judge declined allowing Fish and Wildlife's permit to remain while considering the permit for the burying beetle.

"If this court were to allow the permit to remain in place pending that decision, then construction could go forward in the meantime and perhaps cause the very harms the avoidance of which would otherwise have prompted the Service to deny the permit," Martinez wrote.

Originally, line construction was set to begin in 2017, with initial restoration taking place by the end of November 2018.

According to an NPPD timeline, substation construction began in February 2020. The utility company reported construction will take at least two years.