That string of dots — a proposed new high-voltage transmission line into the San Luis Valley — also is pitting utilities, agricultural and business interests against an amalgam of community groups and landowners, from a goat herder to a billionaire hedge-fund manager.

It is a battle that may be fought across Colorado, as the state needs $2 billion in new transmission lines to tap into wind and solar power, according to a state task force.

And it is a clash running across the West.

“Transmission has become a battleground,”

said Doug Larson, executive director of the Western Interstate Energy Board, an association of 11 states and three Canadian provinces.In the past six months, lines have been blocked by local opposition in Idaho and northern California, Larson said. Meanwhile, a transmission line between Montana and Alberta and a line to bring solar energy to Southern California are moving ahead.

“It’s a tricky issue. We need transmission lines,” said John Nielsen, energy program director for Western Resource Advocates, an environmental law and policy group that supports the San Luis Valley line. “We have to do it, but we have to find ways to minimize the impact.”

The proposed 235-kilovolt line, on towers up to 150 feet tall, would climb over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains at scenic La Veta Pass, run though wide-open and pristine high plains and pass the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

For Blanca potato grower Jerry Smith, the line and renewable energy are opportunities.

“Costilla County is among the poorest in Colorado; any development here would be welcome,” he said.

Farther north in Saguache County, Moffat rancher Julie Sullivan, who is looking at a 1,500-acre solar plant becoming her neighbor, has her doubts.

“The line will take away energy, but what will be the impact here in the valley?” Sullivan asked. “I don’t think we’ve gotten a good answer.”

Power-supply reliability

Xcel Energy and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, the state’s two biggest utilities, say they need the $180 million line from Pueblo to Alamosa to ensure reliability of power supplies in the valley and to carry solar energy to the populated Front Range.

The project is being financed 60 percent by Xcel and 40 percent by Tri-State.

The valley’s existing three transmission lines come over Poncha Pass from the north and are vulnerable to forest fires, rock slides and overloads, Tri-State engineers say.

Those lines supply power that runs irrigation systems for farmers such as Smith.

“Mid-summer crops can really be at risk,” Smith said. “When it gets warm, that’s when we need the water and that’s when transmission is lowest because warm wires carry less electricity.”

Smith uses 40 center pivots, each with a 75 to 100 horsepower electric engine, to cultivate 5,000 acres.

He also relies on a battery of fans and humidifiers in his warehouses so 700 million pounds of potatoes remain in a dormant stage until trucks haul them to Wal-Mart, Kroger and other large grocers.

Line part of Xcel’s greening

For Xcel, the line also is key to meeting the state requirement that 20 percent of its electricity come from renewable sources by 2020.

“Passing a renewable-energy standard was the easy part,” said Mark Stutz, an Xcel spokesman. “Now comes the heavy lifting, siting projects and building lines — and that’s where it becomes controversial.”

The San Luis Valley was identified as the state’s prime solar-energy area by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, and if solar is to become part of Xcel’s portfolio, it needs a line, Stutz said.

A glimpse of the valley’s future may sit on 82 acres in Mosca that are filled with 26,000 photovoltaic panels. This is SunEdison’s $60 million, 8.2 megawatt solar facility — Xcel’s first purchase of solar energy.

“There was all this talk of solar in the valley,” said Brenda Clair, a Mosca resident who now works for SunEdison. “But this made it real, and this is just the beginning.”

Three other projects — by SunPower Corp., Tessera Solar and First Solar — already have been identified in the valley.

In June, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a plan to “fast- track” wind and solar development on designated public lands — including about 20,000 acres overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in the San Luis Valley.

“I wish NREL had never put the valley on the solar map,” said John Villyard, chief executive of the San Luis Valley Rural Electric Cooperative. “Every week I’ve got developers coming into our office with plans to put solar plants in the valley.”

Julie Sullivan and her husband, George Whitten, who own the 4,000- acre San Juan Ranch, which specializes in organic-raised beef, also are concerned.

The proposed Tessera facility sits right on their fence line.

“It’s not that we are against solar,” Sullivan said. “We just feel overwhelmed. . . . How does it all fit together? What is the cumulative impact on the valley?”

Friends and foes of plan

The proposed transmission line must climb over 9,413-foot La Veta Pass, but a bigger hurdle is crossing the 171,000-acre Trinchera Ranch — a tract so vast it has three 14,000-foot mountains on it. The ranch is owned by hedge-fund billionaire Louis Bacon.

Piñon and juniper plains on Trinchera give way to pine and fir slopes, and there are large herds of elk, deer and bighorn sheep. Streams are filled with cutthroat and rainbow trout, and there are 81,000 acres of conservation easements.

“I think of it as a private national park,” said Ty Rylander, Trinchera’s general manager.

Bacon bought the ranch in 2007 for a reported $175 million from the Forbes family and has hired a battery of lawyers, engineers and public-relations consultants to fight the line.

Bacon’s consultants contend an enhanced line can be constructed over Poncha Pass and linked to power lines to the north that run east.

The solution would ensure the valley’s electricity, provide for solar energy to be shipped out of the valley and avoid “sacrificing its valuable scenic, environmental and economic integrity,” according to filings with the state Public Utilities Commission.

“We aren’t opposed to solar power or reliability,” said Cody Wertz, a spokesman for the ranch. “We are looking for a win-win solution and don’t believe alternatives were thoroughly explored.”

Bacon declined to comment.

The Trinchera alternative has been rejected by Tri-State and Xcel.

“Trinchera started not with what was the best solution but how to avoid going across the ranch,” said Lee Boughey, a Tri-State spokesman.

Critics, however, say the same about Tri-State’s 2008 report evaluating alternative routes.

“Big corporations aren’t making decisions for small people,” said Claire Barker, who runs a dairy goat farm in Mosca and also supports an enhanced line over Poncha Pass.

The La Veta line has the advantage for the utilities of being able to be expanded, Barker said, and paraphrasing the Dr. Seuss book “The Lorax,” added: “If biggering is possible, biggering will happen.”

“This has been a highly vetted process,” said Tri-State’s Boughey, pointing out the 2008 study had been preceded by studies in 1997 and 2004.

After the barrage of criticism, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service has decided to do a full environmental impact statement on the project — for which Tri-State is seeking federal financing.

The service was going to do a less- formal environmental assessment.

Still, the line, which needs approval from the Public Utilities Commission, has won the support of the Governor’s Energy Office, the commission staff and Western Resource Advocates.

The San Luis line is “an important precedent” in how Colorado moves forward with utility-scale renewable energy and high-voltage transmission, said Morey Wolfson, a transmission expert for the energy office, in a filing.

The commissioners for Rio Grande, Saguache and Alamosa counties have all voiced support for the project for both electric reliability and as a spur to development.

The commissioners in Costilla County, where Trinchera Ranch is located, have not commented.

“Since the line is going to have to come before us as a land-use issue, I’m trying to stay neutral,” said Costilla County chairman Franklin Kuhn.

In its testimony, Western Resource Advocates supported the line, provided that steps were taken to mitigate the impacts on scenery and wildlife and to manage electricity demand within the valley.

“The San Luis Valley is an important case for how this gets done,” said Western Resource Advocates’ Nielsen.

Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912 or mjaffe@denverpost.com

Other transmission projects in the U.S.

About 32 transmission projects have been proposed across the West, according to the Western Interstate Energy Board. A look at several of them:

• The B2H Transmission Line from Boardman, Ore., to Hemingway, Idaho, may be rerouted by Idaho Power after the 300-mile, 500-kilovolt project encountered opposition in November from a landowner along the proposed path.

• The Transmission Agency of Northern California in July scrapped a proposed 600-mile line that would have brought renewable energy to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Opponents called the $1.5 billion project “The Line to Nowhere.”

• The $536 million Devers-Palo Verde No. 2 project, a 170-mile, 500-kilovolt line designed to bring solar energy to Southern California, won California Public Utilities approval Nov. 20 with the support of environmental groups.

• The SunZia Southwest Transmission Project, which would build two 500-kilovolt lines 460 miles from New Mexico to Arizona, is now under review by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The project cost is estimated at $1 billion.

Other solar projects planned for the San Luis Valley:

• SunPower Corp. will begin construction on a 220-acre plant this spring. It will sell its 17 megawatts of power to Xcel.

• Tessera Solar is proposing a 1,500-acre facility in Sagauche County that will use 8,000 38-foot-diameter mirrored solar dishes to catch the sun’s heat to use in turning a turbine.

Tessera spokeswoman Janette Coates said Tessera is still looking for customers.

• Tucson-based First Solar is the first company to file an application for a facility on federal land, said Maryanne Kurtinaitis, renewable energy program manager in Colorado for the federal Bureau of Land Management.

First Solar wants to put a 150- megawatt plant on 2,100 acres of BLM land in Sagauche County, Kurtinaitis said.