Comanche transmission rebuild

Cimarron National Grassland

The agency files it as “Public Service Company of Colorado (Xcel Energy) 9254/9257 and 9255 Transmission Line Rebuild”

Timing

The agency stopped taking comments on September 28. What you find still counts: it backs the formal objections from people who did comment, it goes to the lawyers on the fight, and it is the story.

The sentence we think is wrong

“The long term addition of approximately 13 miles of permitted roads for intermittent maintenance patrol use represents a long term increase in erosion potential.”

The agency wrote that in its own document, under Water Resources. Nobody has been out to check it. A dated photograph either backs it up or ends it.

How you settle it

Walk to where the power line crosses public land near Leadville and Buena Vista and photograph the ground under and beside the poles: is there already a two-track, or is it untouched slope and meadow? Photos at pole locations showing either an existing drivable track or undisturbed ground where a maintenance road would have to be cut.

The decision

Xcel Energy proposes to replace wood poles with steel monopoles, H-frame, and three-pole dead-end structures on its 115kV transmission line circuits where they cross Forest Service and BLM lands near Leadville and Buena Vista. The project would also add administrative use access routes and adjust the right-of-way width, while keeping the existing voltage rating the same. A draft Decision and Findi

Read the whole thing, and write to the agency about it

How to record it so it counts

01Find where the road is supposed to start. Photograph it from the junction, with anything that identifies the spot (a sign, a gate, a milepost).
02Walk it. Photograph the surface every few hundred meters and at anything that would stop a vehicle: a washout, a slide, a fallen tree, a stream with no crossing, trees growing in the road.
03Photograph the far end the same way.
04Let your phone record a GPS track if it can (any tracking app). A screenshot of the track is fine.
05Write down whether a pickup could drive it today, and why or why not.

What would count

Start, middle and end, with the track. A single photo of brush isn’t a road that doesn’t exist.
The reason a vehicle could not pass, in a photo.
The date. Roads change with a season.

All of it, with the phone settings, in the field guide

Are you going?

Say yes or no. It tells the next person whether anyone has this ground covered, and it is the only way we know a request was answered rather than just read. You can change your mind any time, and nobody follows up.

Join, then say you’re going

Nobody has answered yet

Before you go

Public land only. Plenty of land inside a national forest or park boundary is privately owned, and that is not yours to walk on. A gate or a closure sign means stop. Check the rules for the specific place you are going, because they differ.
Don’t touch survey stakes, flagging, equipment or anything a crew left. Photograph it; leave it.
Don’t approach crews, contractors or agency staff about the project. Don’t interfere with any operation.
Wildlife at a distance. No drones in wilderness or anywhere they’re prohibited. Stay off closed roads and trails.
If you’re not sure, don’t. Weather, terrain, water, fire and people are your call, and yours alone.

More Than Just Parks doesn’t direct where you go or what you do. Terms.