Even After the Towers Went Up: Chino Hills

The Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Project is Southern California Edison's 500 kV line carrying wind power from Kern County to the Los Angeles Basin. In December 2009, the CPUC approved its route through Chino Hills — Segment 8A — calling it the “environmentally superior route.” By 2011, SCE was erecting nearly 200-foot steel towers in a 150-foot right-of-way directly over a residential neighborhood. ^{[1] [2]}

The City of Chino Hills and a grassroots residents' group, Hope for the Hills, refused to accept it. They went to court, filed a petition to reopen the approval, and won an order halting construction while the Commission reconsidered. ^{[1] [2]}

On July 11, 2013, the CPUC voted 3 to 2 to underground the 3.5-mile Chino Hills segment and remove the 16 towers and poles SCE had already put up — Decision D.13-07-018. The buried 500 kV line was energized in October 2016. ^{[3] [2]}

The lever here was different from the other precedents. This was not about “need” or a state park — it was about a giant overhead line towering over homes, and a community that simply would not stop. Chino Hills spent about $2.4 million and years of effort, and beat one of the largest utilities in the country. ^{[1] [2]}

This is not a clean victory, and it shouldn't be sold as one. The project was not stopped — the line was built and it operates today. It was a different utility (SCE, not SDG&E). And undergrounding was not free: it added about $224 million to a project that already cost roughly $2 billion, paid by ratepayers, and buried lines cost more and can take longer to repair. ^[2]

What it proves is narrower, and still powerful: a 500 kV line can be forced underground after a community fights — even after the towers are standing — and “it can't be undergrounded” is not true. It has been done, at 500 kV, in California, by order of the same Commission that will rule on this project. ^{[3] [2]}

Two lessons carry directly. First, approval is not the end: a project can be reopened and construction halted even after a permit issues. Second, undergrounding is a real, proven remedy — so the environmental review here should be made to seriously study burying the line where it runs near homes, schools, and Temecula Creek, with Chino Hills as the answer to anyone who calls it impossible. ^{[3] [1]}