Apr. 7--Work is finally starting on Rocky Mountain Power's high-voltage power line stretching from Idaho to Salt Lake City.

Rocky Mountain spokesman Dave Eskelsen said the company has started the construction process along the line.

He said crews are primarily in the Layton area and near the state line in Box Elder County right now.

Putting in a major power line is a long process and isn't segmented by area, so construction will be happening at various points along the length of the line for the next year or so, Eskelsen said.

He said the company is still shooting for the 345,000-volt line to be in service by 2010. However, when it will be complete depends on how quickly construction goes.

Because of the length of the project, Eskelsen said the time required for testing and construction can vary by several months. Rocky Mountain has begun the preliminary work of creating access roads and doing geotechnical work such as soil sampling in Box Elder County.

This is the first step in putting in a line, Eskelsen said.

He said by mid-April, Rocky Mountain will be done with work on the existing line between Plymouth and Honeyville to integrate it with the new project.

In general, construction will work from the two ends, the Salt Lake City and the Idaho substations, and work toward the middle in the Ben Lomond substation, Eskelsen said.

Construction at Ben Lomond will begin soon to expand the infrastructure needed for the line, he said.

To build the line, Eskelsen said the company must first put in access roads, then do excavation and installation of concrete foundations and then put in the steel of the power structure.

Once all the structures are done, he said, the conductors can be installed and a helicopter must carefully fly down the line attaching a lead line.

Only after all those steps are done can the final lines be installed and the line tested.

Eskelsen said he wasn't sure if negotiations had been finished with all the affected landowners but said most right-of-way issues are settled amicably.

"We recognize this has been a difficult project for a lot of folks locally, but this is absolutely necessary for the segment of Utah it serves," he said.

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