At the end of the day, the San Luis Valley is really the loser if we don't find the path forward to maximize the potential for solar in this valley. There just has to be a win-win solution in here.

So give hedge-fund billionaire Louis Bacon his due for the high-powered effort of recent months to spare his 171,000-acre Trinchera Ranch from being crossed by a 235-kilovolt transmission line proposed by Xcel Energy and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association — a line linking the San Luis Valley with a new power substation near Walsenburg east of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. When all is said and done, however, Bacon is funding on a grand scale what amounts to a NIMBY campaign. He may own the largest backyard in the state, with some of the loveliest views, but he is also merely one more property owner stunned to learn that the most logical route for a power line — and this route is the most logical — traverses his land.

We Coloradans are about to lose one of our most scenic places. It doesn't need to happen....In recent months, an issue threatening the natural treasures in the San Luis Valley and Trinchera Ranch itself has been the topic of great debate. A proposal by two Colorado utilities, Xcel Energy and Tri-State Generation, would carve up Trinchera Ranch's undeveloped wildlife habitat and the San Luis Valley's greatest view shed with 150-foot-tall transmission line towers that will cut a half a football field-wide swath along their path. This is part of a project to get more power into the San Luis Valley while creating the ability to transmit solar energy out of the valley to the Front Range.