A 500 kV Line in Our Own Backyard That Never Got Built: LEAPS

The Talega-Escondido / Valley-Serrano Interconnect was a ~30-mile, 500 kV line proposed through the Cleveland National Forest near Lake Elsinore, Wildomar, Murrieta, and Temecula — connecting Edison's Valley-Serrano system to SDG&E's Talega-Escondido line. It was the transmission half of Nevada Hydro's Lake Elsinore pumped-storage project (LEAPS). ^[1]

It was pushed for nearly two decades — and never got the federal land authorization or the state certificate it needed. It was never built. ^[1]

At the federal level, FERC dismissed the project's license in 2021 (rehearing denied in 2022) — largely because the U.S. Forest Service could not authorize the line to cross Cleveland National Forest land. At the state level, the CPUC dismissed the transmission application twice over an incomplete environmental filing; it never received a certificate. ^[1]

And the opposition was a coalition that is still standing today: the cities of Lake Elsinore, Wildomar, Murrieta, and Temecula, the Pechanga Band, the U.S. Forest Service, and environmental groups. ^[1]

This was a different sponsor (Nevada Hydro, not SDG&E) and a transmission-plus-pumped-storage scheme, and the FERC docket is technically still open — revived by a later owner. So the honest description is “repeatedly dismissed and never built,” not “permanently killed.” ^[1]

But what it proves should steady every neighbor in this valley: a 500 kV line in this exact corridor was held off the ground for twenty years by environmental review, the federal-land process, and a community that refused to tire. The crossings of national forest and protected land are real chokepoints — and patience and persistence have already won here once. ^[1]