Riverside Transmission Reliability Project

The City of Riverside, in conjunction with Southern California Edison (SCE), is in the process of moving forward with an upgrade of Riverside's electrical public utility solely by proposing above ground high voltage transmission towers through most of our City of Jurupa Valley, with no regard for the significant physical, social, environmental, and economic impacts that this project will have on our City. This project, named the Riverside Transmission Reliability Project (RTRP), will decimate the heart of the City's future commercial corridor along the I-15 freeway, and significantly impact a number of residents in housing developments in close proximity to the proposed route. The City of Jurupa Valley and other interested parties are aggressively working toward preventing this project from moving forward as currently planned. Although there may be a justifiable requirement for the City of Riverside to increase their capacity, this should not occur to the physical, social, environmental, and financial detriment this proposed project will place on our City, when there are other viable alternatives that have been ignored by Riverside and SCE.

In 2015, SCE filed an amended application with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for construction of the transmission towers and high voltage lines, which would underground a portion of the project south of Limonite Avenue This route would underground through Goose Creek Golf course to 68th Street at Lucretia, then west on 68th Street to Pats Ranch Road, north up to Limonite Avenue, and west to the Limonite interchange with the I-15 freeway. The route would then continue the overhead high voltage transmission lines along the I-15 freeway north to Landon Drive, then east to Wineville Avenue and north to Cantu Galleano Ranch Road

Proposed Transmission Line Map

View a map through Jurupa Valley(PDF, 3MB) that shows the proposed route.

With this amended application submittal, the CPUC directed their Energy Department to prepare a Subsequent Environmental Impact Report (SEIR) because they determined that the previous environmental impact report prepared by the City of Riverside was inadequate. This started the public review process through the CPUC. In April of 2018, the CPUC issued the Final SEIR (FSEIR) after receiving numerous comments from the interested parties and the general public. The FSEIR determined that the "environmentally superior alternative" would be to underground the entire project through the City of Jurupa Valley. This alternative would change the route to underground along Pats Ranch Road all the way to Bellegrave Avenue, then underground east to Wineville Avenue, then underground north To Cantu Galleano Ranch Road The FESIR can be found at the Southern California Edison's Riverside Transmission Reliability Project website.

Project Stage

The project is now in the official Proceedings stage which involves legal documentation submittals to the CPUC Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) overseeing this phase of the Proceedings. The ALJ will review all legal documents submitted by SCE, the City of Riverside, the City of Jurupa Valley, and all interested parties that are registered and accepted by the CPUC as having standing in the Proceedings. These submittals are currently in process. In August, the ALJ will hold hearings with the applicants and interested parties and make a final determination and recommendation on the project to the CPUC Commissioners sometime in the late fall of this year (2019). The Commission is tentatively scheduled to hold a final public hearing and make a decision in early 2020.

The link to all the public documents posted by the CPUC and all actions taken by the parties and the CPUC can be found at the Proceeding Details website.

City Support

The City believes that ultimately the CPUC will allow the RTRP to be routed through Jurupa Valley, and as such, the City supports the "environmentally superior alternative" of undergrounding through the entire City as previously mentioned.

The time is now for all members of the public to begin submitting letters to our assigned CPUC Commissioner concerning this project. Additionally, there will be other opportunities to comment at the future public hearings at the CPUC. A sample letter of concern(DOC, 34KB) which supports undergrounding can be found viewed or downloaded. Please feel free to revise or tailor this sample letter to your specific preference. Contact information for filing comment letters with the CPUC can be found here.

Several documents concerning this project and actions being taken by the City and others in response to this ongoing process are listed on the Document List with links to each document for reference.