Commonwealth Edison Co. announced Friday that it is going forward with plans to build a new 138,000-volt power line along the Illinois Prairie Path in Warrenville despite the efforts over the last year by county officials and homeowners to move the project elsewhere.
The planned route differs from the one proposed originally by Edison last February in that about half of the line will be strung along Butterfield Road on its way east to a new substation.
Edison area manager Brian Willemsen said the line and the substation, also moved from its original proposed location, are necessary to meet the growing energy demands in south Wheaton.
”We really need to get the ball rolling on this project,” Willemsen said Friday. ”It`s going to get awfully dark in Wheaton pretty fast if we don`t.”
The project is estimated to cost about $15 million, but would cost $30 million to bury the lines, Willemsen said.
Du Page County Board Chairman Aldo Botti, who formed a special committee last spring to study the matter, said Edison`s decision does not allay all the county`s concerns about keeping the lines away from people.
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Though Botti did not reject Edison`s proposal outright, he acknowledged Friday that he had hoped for better. However, he said, that plan is not the last word.
”They`re really trying to resolve the issue,” Botti said. ”It`s not what I want, but at least they`re in a compromising mode.”
County officials still have some leverage over Edison`s decision-making process. Edison`s favored plan would require the cooperation of the Forest Preserve Commission in locating the substation on its property.
Also, the power company still has to deal with county officials elsewhere in Du Page, Botti said.
Wheaton and Warrenville homeowners whose property abuts portions of the bicycle and nature trail say the new power line will displace trees and wildlife, although the number of trees involved was uncertain.
They said they also fear the effects of electromagnetic fields surrounding the lines, although there is no verified scientific evidence to support those fears.
Last month, scientists at the annual meeting in Chicago of the Radiological Society of North America said there is not enough good information and too much bad data to judge whether magnetic fields from power lines and electrical appliances pose a cancer threat.
But Maureen Rawls, whose home in Warrenville is less than 100 yards from the trail, said erection of power lines would ”destroy the Prairie Path. It`s hard to understand why they (Edison officials) don`t want to explore another alternative.”
”We`re disappointed because of the tremendous impact this will have,”
said Paul Mooring, president of the Illinois Prairie Path Association, which maintains the trail throughout Du Page County.
Residents and county officials had proposed running the line along the East-West Tollway, then bring it north through forest preserve property to the new substation.
The Prairie Path, a former railroad right of way, is owned by Du Page County`s Division of Transportation, but Edison has a permanent easement to run its lines there.
Willemsen pointed out that the utility did address some concerns about exposure to electromagnetic fields when it agreed to move the substation from a residential area along Wiesbrook Road in Wheaton to a proposed site on the south side of Butterfield Road west of Herrick Road.
Willemsen said the current plan would affect about 30 residential properties and that Edison engineers would work with local authorities and homeowner groups to minimize any impact.
He said about 25 steel poles about 80 feet high will be located within the path`s right of way between the substation at Eola Road and where the lines will be diverted along Butterfield. The actual power lines will be about 50 feet above the ground, he added.