An electric highway through Elbert County

PUC commissioners side with Xcel Energy in land-use dispute southeast of Denver but admonish Xcel for outreach efforts involving final segment of 550-mile transmission line considered critical for Colorado’s greenhouse gas reduction goals.

by Allen Best

Ever met a person who hated electricity? Me either. It’s useful around the house or office and increasingly to power our cars.

Transmission lines are an entirely different matter. Nobody wants them in their backyards, especially if no direct benefit is understood.

Such is the conundrum involving Colorado’s Elbert County, which is likely to be bisected by the electrical equivalent of an interstate highway. The county in July 2025 denied two permits for the 345-kV line as configured by Xcel Energy. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission earlier this month overrode Elbert County’s denial, as a state law adopted nearly 20 years ago clearly authorizes the PUC to do.

On balance, said the PUC commissioners in a written decision on April 13, the statewide interest outweighs the local land use interests underlying the county’s denials of the requesting siting permits.

Elbert County occupies a large area of land southeast of Denver and northeast of Colorado Springs. Top photo, the Colorado Power Pathway crosses Interstate 76 near Roggen, northeast of Denver.

Elbert County had seen the case differently. In a filing with the PUC, it said the case was about whether the county should be “forced to accept a particular transmission line route that has severe and permanent negative effects for the County and its citizens to advance the state’s interests in completing the Power Pathway” project.

Yesterday, after meeting in executive session, the Elbert County commissioners said they would file a motion with the PUC seeking reconsideration of the decision. In filing this motion, they said they hoped to work with the PUC and Xcel to identify a solution that would meet the state’s future energy needs while ensuring that the local interests of Elbert County are adequately protected.

Elbert County wanted a route in the eastern end of the country, where far fewer people live. The county did not identify a precise route.

Xcel responded that any route in the eastern part had difficult complications that would elevate the cost. Among the difficulties were conservation easements that prohibited utility development, impacts to the West Bijou National Natural Landmark, greater distance from fire stations and reduced road access. The utility repeatedly spoke to higher costs but did not — as the Elbert County commissioners pointed out this week — disclose the costs.

Kerry Jiblits, of an Elbert County group called the Environmental Alliance, told Big Pivots that the 400 participants were “saddened but not surprised” by this decision.

“Xcel has been threatening this from the very beginning,” Jiblits said. “The fact that a board, appointed by one man, can overturn the decision of officials elected by the citizens, is a travesty.”

The three PUC commissioners are appointed by the governor. By law, only two can be of one political party. The third can be unaffiliated.

The PUC commissioners are scheduled on April 29 to decide a similar case in El Paso County involving the same 345-kV transmission line planned by Xcel.

The nagging question is whether there could be a better way of deciding the routes of these transmission lines that we need to meet our growing needs for electricity. The PUC commissioners, in announcing their decision verbally on April 6, clearly wished for a better way. They chastised Xcel Energy, the proponent, for its outreach efforts. As for the facts, however, they shared no indecision. The law, they said, was clear about their authority and their responsibility.

One dangling thought, however, is whether Elbert County went about this in the right way. Instead of outright denials, might it have been more effective issuing an approval with conditions. It’s in this middle ground of “conditions” that the hard negotiations often occur.

About this electricity highway

The 48 miles of transmission line across Elbert County are part of a 550-mile loop around eastern Colorado approved by state regulators in 2021. Along the way are massive amounts of wind and solar potential, crucial to Xcel’s commitment to reducing emissions from its power supply. The primary destination for this power is metropolitan Denver-Boulder.

Total cost was estimated at $1.7 to $2 billion. The PUC commissioners, in approving the line had cautiously called it “one of the most expansive and significant transmission proposals” ever to come before it. They also emphasized that the transmission line was considered critical in enabling Xcel to meet peak demands by the summer of 2030. Of note: this was before data centers arrived on the scene to inflate estimates of peak demand.

Those decarbonization goals remain the law, and the renewable energy found in eastern Colorado is key to achieving the goals in a timely manner. The Colorado Power Pathway is the highway for delivery of those electrons. It starts at the St. Vrain natural gas plant near Greeley and angles toward the Kansas border near Eads before heading west toward Pueblo County. Two of the five segments have been completed, and one more will be later this year.

The only real question mark lies along the 130-mile fifth segment from Pueblo County to a substation along E-470 in Aurora called Harvest Mile. The route mostly lies 35 to 40 miles east of I-25.

Located southeast of Denver, Elbert County sprawls across a diverse landscape of wheat fields, grazing lands and forests of ponderosa pine. In places, it is the Great Plains. In others, the foothills of the Rockies. To the east, near Elizabeth and Kiowa, the county seat, it’s a place of exurban 2-, 5- and 10-acre lots, large enough for horses and neighbors, but not too close. It’s a 35-minute commute from Kiowa to Parker, a little longer to Castle Rock.

The 345-kV transmission line would go somewhere in this valley, crossing Highway 82.

Going east toward Limon, the population of Elbert County thins. The Colorado Senate during March designated Highway 82 as a scenic highway and deservedly so. The landscape compares favorably with Colorado’s other scenic byways, especially when the grasses have greened.

And the fierce devotion to backyards is understandable no matter what rural or semi-rural county in Colorado and some urban ones, too. Of note: distribution lines commonly are 30 to 40 feet high. These transmission lines are 105 to 140 feet tall.

A long night in December

In December, the three PUC members traveled to Kiowa to hear locals make their case for an altered route for the fifth and final segment of the 345-kV Colorado Power Pathway. The meeting was scheduled for two or three hours, but enough locals – roughly 60, including two state legislators — showed up to speak their pieces. The meeting went four and a half hours into the long December night.

“Welcome to God’s country,” said Don Gray, one of many speakers who emphasized the county’s rural character.

The meeting was held at the Elbert County fairgrounds. Banners on the wall proclaimed honors earned by the local 4-H clubs in statewide competition. One was for a horse bowl team, others for rabbit judging. Dress was casual. Nearly all the men wore hats. A wooden cross stood in a corner. One woman wearing a bright orange shirt that said “Rural Lives Matter.”

Caps were the norm for the men who attended the PUC hearing in Kiowa on Dec. 9.

Several of those who testified said they did not object to the transmission line altogether. They just didn’t think it needed to go through very much of Elbert County. Instead, they — and the county — wanted a vaguely plotted route that skirted the county to the east, in the area of the Rush Creek Wind Farm and then north toward I-70.

Objections to visual intrusion was a theme. One said Xcel’s route would deliver high-voltage transmission line closer to his home than the width of the room where the meeting was being held at the Elbert County Fairgrounds. Another speaker predicted towers would be located “within 10 paces of somebody’s bathroom.”

Noise was another objection. A woman who identified herself only as Peggy said the transmission line would be less than 1,000 feet away from her house. She expects to hear a constant buzz, which can increase in volume with wind or moisture.

Still another objection was that Elbert County would get no electricity from the transmission line except indirectly. Electrical cooperatives, CORE and Mountain View, supply the county. The electricity goes to the more densely populated metropolitan area.

That is true, although pertinent is that Xcel is the balancing authority for Elbert County. Xcel, in. a different way, keeps the lights on.

Some expressed fear of reduced property values. One individual cited a study that found 40% decline in the value of property along transmission.

A strong theme was unhappiness with Xcel. “I’ve been through all the meetings, ever since day one, for almost four years, and they seem like they all were a waste of time,” said one speaker, who accused Xcel of “being less than transparent. I mean, we caught them in being deceptive in their statements over and over.”

Another speaker accused Xcel of offering a take it-or-leave it proposition. “That’s not what the responsible party does. It’s what a bully does. It’s what you see on a daily level.”

Wildfire risks worried many. The Marshall Fire that was caused, in part, according to state investigators, by Xcel lines loomed large.

One woman spoke about a fire caused eight years ago that was caused by a ricocheting bullet. It destroyed four houses and six out-buildings. The speaker said the transmission line would pass within a half-mile of the school in Kiowa with 300 students as well as an assisted living facility. Kiowa has only one water tank, two fire trucks and fire hydrants that haven’t been kept up.

“We are not the wealthy who live in rich pockets of the state. We cannot afford more taxes to improve infrastructure to make ourselves safer.”

Would undergrounding of the transmission lines lower wildfire risk and mitigate or completely end other impacts?

Undergrounding of power lines is by every account enormously expensive, “Prohibitively expensive,” the PUC commissioners said in their written decision on April 13.

On the other hand, as one speaker testified at the December hearing, Xcel makes lots of money. The company’s Colorado operations generated $5.27 billion in revenue during 2024, said the speaker, citing SEC filings getting $870 million in profits. Xcel, he said, makes money by investing in infrastructure, so why not underground the power lines.

The political complexion

There is a sense of the frontier in Elbert County, as you often find in exurban areas, places just beyond the urban fringe. People are proud to say they do not live in the city or the suburbs.

Such places often veer heavily Republican in political affiliations, and Elbert County is no exception. Donald Trump won nearly 75% of the county’s votes in both the 2020 and 2024 elections.

As for Jared Polis, he won only 22% of votes in 2018 and then 25% in the 2022 election. The PUC commissioners are appointed by the governor in Colorado. State law requires that no more than two of the three commissioners can be of the same political party as the governor, although the third can be an independent.

The Colorado Power Pathway loops around eastern Colorado, allowing it to pick up wind and solar generation for delivery to the Denver-Boulder metropolitan area. The PUC did not authorize the Longhorn extension from the Lamar area into the state’s southeast corner.

On April 6, when the three commissioners held oral deliberations, they all shared their conflicted feelings.

“Those views were communicated very effectively to us in the public hearings that we had,” said PUC Commissioner Tom Plant. “That concern was palpable.”

“State law contemplates this kind of controversy that we’re here to discuss today, but certainly no one hopes it gets to this,” said Commissioner Megan Gilman.

“This is not a great position to be in,” concurred Eric Blank, the chair of the commission.

Many at the December hearing in Kiowa had described Xcel representatives as arrogant in their dealings with the local residents.

“It certainly seems like there may be substantial room for improvement in the (Xcel) outreach approach to the landowners, residents and local fire agencies,” said Blank.

Several people had said that company representatives had threatened condemnation proceedings well before the line was approved.

“I think people were rightly upset about that,” said Plant. There might be a legal basis for moving toward condemnations, he said, but it struck him as “wrong and disrespectful to the people of the community.”

But if they could sympathize with Elbert County, the commissioners ruled that Elbert County had failed to establish its case convincingly. The case was easily decided in the simple matter of the law. State interests superseded local concerns.

The PUC’s written decision issued on April 13 said Xcel’s preferred route “constitutes essential infrastructure necessary to provide safe, reliable, and economical service to all Coloradans who depend on the statewide transmission grid.”

As for an alternative pathway, it would “likely be far too slow and uncertain,” Blank had said in the oral deliberations.

As the commissioners had agreed in their meeting, the 126-page decision also said that Xcel must pay Elbert County $2.5 million for impact fees, as would have been the case had Elbert County approved the project.