The photo is of Watts Valley in the Sierra foothills of eastern Fresno County, California. It was taken from the southern slope of Oat Mountain in March, 2008.
In September, 2007 property owners in Watts Valley began receiving notifications in the mail from Pacific Gas and Electric Company about their plans to build a 500 kilovolt transmission project called "The Central California Clean Energy Transimission Project," or C3ETP. We were notified because our land was located along one of the several possible corridors for the billion dollar project.
We were concerned because we know from previous experience the futility of fighting PG&E. However, because our property was on one of several possible alternatives, we decided to wait and see rather than contact PG&E for further information. A neighbor called within a few days to tell us she had received a similar notification. She was quite concerned. We still hoped we would not be on the final choice of routes.
Two weeks later, the same neighbor called again and said she had called the 800 number provided in the notification. Subsequently, a PG&E right-of-way agent had contacted her and visited her home to discuss the project. While they surveyed Watts Valley from her deck which overlooks our property from about half a mile, the PG&E man pointed to our land and said PG&E intended to build a substation there. She explained further that the list of alternate routes had now been shortened to two: one up from Kern County along Interstate 5 then north to Madera County, then east to a substation in the foothills; the other east through Kern County to the Sierra foothills, then north through the foothills through Kern, Tulare, and Fresno counties to the same substation. There were two possibilities for substation locations, one in Watts Valley and another near Humphreys Station, about six miles west of Watts Valley.
We were now quite concerned and called the PG&E man's number. When he confirmed the alarming news, we explained to him that the property was (and is still) not for sale, he clearly implied that if our property was on the final route selected by the California Public Utilities Commission, that PG&E would sue us in court using the law of eminent domain to take possession of our property.
Since then we have organized to fight PG&E's plan and formed a group called Save the Foothills Coalition. We have met with PG&E several times attempting to dissuade them of this terrible plan. We have listened in on one of the planning meetings held by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) and have written comments on the planning process. In our opinion the planning process is rigged, and we believe that agreements have already been made by word of mouth. The government, the CAISO, and PG&E are now just going through the formalities to convince an inattentive public that they play by the rules. We will continue to fight this apparently inexorable process. However, in order to win, we need your help.
This brings us to the purpose of this blog: to collect photos of Watts Valley and surrounding areas so as to reveal to the world this wonderful and beautiful place in the hope that by doing so we can convince you and people like you to join Save the Foothills in our struggle to protect this place.
