DRIGGS — Fall River Rural Electric Cooperative wants to build its Midway Substation on residential land it already owns, the same site Teton County denied three months ago, and told county commissioners on June 23 that it passed on an industrial parcel nearby over a price it called too high.
The commissioners denied Fall River's special use permit for the residential site 2-1 on March 23. The cooperative then withdrew a reconsideration in May, after concluding its application was missing a county-required wildlife study, and has signaled it will file a new application. At a June 23 conference with the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC), Fall River reviewed the alternative sites it had evaluated and explained why it kept returning to the parcel it had been denied for.
One of those alternatives was Log Cabin Lane, a property along the transmission line that Bryan Case, Fall River's chief executive, described as industrial. Case told the board that Fall River approached the property, but the land already had development plans underway. "They gave us an outlandish number. It just was crazy," he said. "They had things lined out already, and it was just multiple million dollars." Case added: "If you want to buy it, that will buy it."