No alien power lines allowed

The TANC transmission line project in Northern California has made another enemy. And this one's a classic.

Headline in my former paper:

Scientists say TANC could foil Hat Creek search for ETs

Yup.

The search for the slightest signal of intelligent life at the far end of the galaxy from a north state radio observatory could be jammed by the buzz of proposed power lines.

With more than $50 million invested in the Allen Telescope Array, scientists at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory don't want the proposed power lines of the Transmission Agency of Northern California to interfere with their sensitive equipment.

"We have a lot of reasons why we wouldn't like the power lines to be in our backyard," said Donald Backer, director of the array and the Radio Astronomy Lab at University of California at Berkeley. [ ... ]

Backer has joined the scores of north state residents filing comments about the power lines' proposed path. Running from Lassen County to the San Francisco Bay area, the 500-kilovolt line would travel over land in or near Cassel, Burney, Round Mountain, Oak Run, Millville, Happy Valley, Cottonwood and Red Bluff.

No telling whether he got any little green men to sign any petitions.