Commonwealth Edison officials said Monday that relocating 4 1/2 miles of high-voltage transmission lines from the Illinois Prairie Path near Warrenville to the East-West Tollway would be impossible because the project is at the point of no return. The Prairie Path option is the least expensive and most environmentally friendly, said the utility’s attorney, Glenn Rippie. The utility plans to construct the lines and a substation at Winfield and Butterfield Roads.
“We are out of time. There is no more time to build something else,” said Rippie.
But opponents maintain that the best place for Commonwealth Edison’s high-voltage transmission lines is along the tollway.
DuPage County Board member Roger Kotecki said he expects the board to vote Tuesday on directing the county state’s attorney’s office to draft an agreement with Warrenville that would hold the county harmless for any dollar amount above the $1 million it offered conditionally to relocate the lines.
Warrenville has agreed to consider spending up to $5 million of its tax dollars for the relocation. If the agreement is approved, County Board members can vote on revoking the utility’s right to the easement where it plans the high-power lines, Kotecki said.
Power lines could be in place by summer, but outages still could affect a handful of towns in the western suburbs, though for shorter periods, said utility spokesman Jack Jarrett. Customers in Wheaton, Warrenville, West Chicago, Winfield and unincorporated DuPage County would benefit from the lines, Edison officials said.
Contradicting reports that 60 percent of the increased power would serve Warrenville’s large Cantera development located at the tollway and Winfield Road, Rippie said that the utility’s 40-year plan shows no more than 25 percent of the power transmitted over the new lines is to be supplied to Cantera, which would be the largest user of power from the new lines.
The canopy of trees over a portion of the Prairie Path will remain, and the utility’s plan calls for 38 poles to replace more than 100 wooden poles lining the path. For the most part, the metal poles will be twice as tall as the old ones.
A majority of the trees to be removed for the project have been cut, said Jarrett. About 60 percent of the pole foundations are completed and two poles are in place.
Warrenville leaders were encouraged by a recent report from the public utility consulting firm of Whitfield Russell Associates, based in Washington, D.C. The report concluded that the tollway option would cost $2.1 million more than the utility’s Prairie Path proposal, Rippie said The utility stands by its estimates that relocating the lines to the tollway would cost $10 million to $20 million.
