United Illuminating asked state regulators on Monday to revisit their decision that blocked the utility from building an above-ground transmission line through sections of Fairfield and Bridgeport.
The project — formally known as the Fairfield-Congress Railroad Transmission Line — has generated intense local pushback over the impact that the transmission line would have as it passes over homes, businesses and churches, suspended from giant steel monopoles. Utility officials have countered that the proposed alternatives, including burying the line underground, would add hundreds of millions of dollars to the project’s costs, which would be paid back by customers across Connecticut.
Last month, the Connecticut Siting Council voted 5-3 to reject the project, with several members reversing their previous positions of support.
“As the Council has repeatedly found, there is a strong public need for this Project, which will replace 60-year-old, deteriorated UI transmission infrastructure, which sits atop 100-year-old, [state] owned railroad catenaries,” the company said in a formal petition asking the Siting Council to reconsider its ruling.
Additionally, the petition argued that the council’s sudden reversal left company officials “with no guidance as to what, if any, issues the Council had with the proposed solution to the important public need the Project sought to address.”
While the request is unlikely to yield a different outcome, it is necessary for United Illuminating to exhaust its options before the Siting Council in order to file a lawsuit seeking to overturn the decision.
The company gave further indication that it is pursing a legal appeal last month when its attorneys sent letters to members of the Siting Council, as well as local leaders in Bridgeport and Fairfield, advising them to preserve any documents or communications related to the project.
The letter, known as a “litigation hold,” often serves as a precursor to a formal lawsuit.
Officials in Fairfield and Bridgeport did not immediately offer comment Monday on UI’s latest request. A spokesperson for Gov. Ned Lamont’s office declined to comment.
The Fairfield-Congress transmission line was previously the subject of a lawsuit brought by officials in Bridgeport and Fairfield, along with other local critics, challenging the Siting Council’s decision to propose and approve an alternative plan that moved the proposed route of the transmission line from the south side of the Metro North railroad tracks to the north.
In April, a judge ruled that the council has overstepped its authority by modifying UI’s proposal with its own route.
The decision led the Siting Council to reconsider the original 7.3 mile route as proposed by UI in 2023. Over the next few months, the members of the council publicly wavered over their decision, holding a series of votes in which they went back and forth over whether to approve the project.
After a nonbinding straw vote was held in September in which a majority of the council indicated their support for the project, opponents declared the process “tainted” as a result of several members switching their positions from an earlier vote in June.
Those concerns evaporated, however, after the council switched positions again to reject UI’s proposal during the final and biding vote held on Oct. 16.
Instead, it is now the utility that is protesting the process. In its filing on Monday, the company stated that the Siting Council “acted illegally and arbitrarily in flipping its vote with absolutely no reasons provided.”
The transmission line is also of interest to communities outside of Bridgeport and Fairfield due to the construction costs that will be recouped from utility customers.
UI has estimated that the cost of building its proposed overhead transmission line will be around $300 million. That amount can be spread among the nearly 14 million electric customers in six states under rules established by the regional grid operator, ISO New England.
If the Siting Council forces those lines to be buried, however, the additional costs are borne by electric customers in Connecticut alone, according to ISO NE.
Burying the line could increase the costs of the project by up to $500 million, according to UI’s estimates. Critics, however, argue that the utility’s estimates are wildly inflated based on the costs of other recently completed underground transmission lines in the area.