Nov. 17, 2014 — Hundreds of elected county officials gathered in St. George last week as the Utah Association of Counties' Annual Convention celebrated its 90th year.

Joining the Nov. 12-14 training, education and celebration event was TransWest Express LLC, which exhibited at and sponsored the convention for the sixth year in a row. The TransWest booth stayed busy as attendees stopped by to ask questions about the TransWest Express Transmission Project, a proposed 3,000 MW HVDC transmission line designed to deliver renewable energy and to strengthen the capacity and reliability of the western U.S. power grid. The project's proposed Nevada-to-Wyoming route intersects 10 Utah counties and is specifically planned to allow for a future interconnection in Millard County. It also is designed to be sited on federal land and co-located with existing linear infrastructure as much as possible.

The most frequent questions from attendees related to the status of the Environmental Impact Statement, the comprehensive federal environmental analysis being prepared by the Bureau of Land Management and Western Area Power Administration as joint lead federal agencies. Their Draft EIS was published on July 3, 2013, and the BLM announced on Oct. 29, 2014, that the Final EIS is anticipated to be published in April 2015. The project's original right-of-way application was filed with the BLM on Nov. 30, 2007.

The Utah Association of Counties is a voluntary, state-wide organization supported by the 29 counties of Utah. UAC was formed in 1924 to help counties provide effective county governance to the people of Utah.

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