TANC goes in tank

“We give up.” That was essentially the message last week, when the Transmission Agency of Northern California (TANC) announced it was abandoning its effort to build a 600-mile high-voltage power line across Northern California to bring “green power” from Lassen County to urban areas.

At first opposition came from property owners concerned about power lines encroaching on their property. Then from city and county officials upset because they’d been kept in the dark. Finally, when the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, the project’s largest sponsor, pulled out, the handwriting was on the wall.

Soon after, power suppliers in Turlock and Modesto, part of the original 15-agency public-power consortium that formed TANC, pulled out, sounding the death knell, which rang on Wednesday, July 15.