RANCHO PENASQUITOS - Peering over a big map set up on an easel at an open-house-style meeting Tuesday on the Sunrise Powerlink transmission line, Marcee Chipman said she was grateful that at least the wires would be out of sight behind her home.

"I'm really happy I don't have to look at it," said Chipman, a criminal defense attorney who lives in Rancho Penasquitos.

But Chipman said it is troublesome that the final three miles of the 150-mile-long power line would tower above the Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve, one of her favorite places to hike.

"I'm down there at least once a month," she said. "It's really good for bird-watching and reflecting. It's very peaceful."

The meeting with about 40 participants was one of several being held this week in three counties - San Diego, Riverside and Imperial - to provide opportunities for people to learn about the $1.3 billion power line San Diego Gas & Electric Co. wants to build and the potential effects it could have on communities and the environment.

SDG&E, which provides electricity to all of San Diego County and the southern one-third of Orange County, in essence wants to pave a 150-mile superhighway of electricity across the backcountry of San Diego and Imperial counties, and through the suburban neighborhoods of Rancho Penasquitos.

That highway would be paved with 500-kilovolt wires draped from metal towers as tall as 160 feet, and would run through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Ranchita, Santa Ysabel, Ramona and Rancho Penasquitos. The lines would deliver 1,000 megawatts, boosting the region's electricity supply by about 20 percent.

SDG&E has proposed to put about 10 of the 150 miles of wires underground, in parts of Ramona and Rancho Penasquitos.

A large number of San Diego County elected officials and business leaders have lined up in favor of the $1.3 billion project, while it is fiercely opposed by environmentalists, consumer advocates and residents of communities the wires would cross.

The utility maintains the line to ensure reliable electricity long into the future, while opponents contend there are more affordable and less environmentally destructive alternatives.

A state regulatory body, the California Public Utilities Commission, has the job of sorting out the arguments for and against the line and is expected to decide by late summer whether to give SDG&E permission to build the project. An administrative law judge will release a proposed decision, possibly in July, and commissioners will decide whether to ratify it, reject it or modify it.

The commission staff and U.S. Bureau of Land Management produced earlier this month a 7,000-page environmental impact report analyzing impacts. This week's workshops are designed to answer people's questions about the document.

When it comes to Rancho Penasquitos, the study says that, in areas where the project would be above ground, wires would be strung through a sky already pierced by power lines and would not significantly harm views. And the new wires would hang with existing ones on the same poles.

Still, just because the area has wires now is no reason to say the impact would be minor, Chipman said.

And even though wires would be underground between the preserve and Rancho Penasquitos Boulevard, a distance of five miles, Rancho Penasquitos resident Jim Gibson said he doesn't like the thought of a major construction project next to two schools. He said there would be a danger that children could fall into trenches.

Gibson, a sales director, said it would make more sense to run the line along Highway 56.

"You've got this big freeway that's empty," he said. "There's room all around it."

Truck mechanic Dominick Colamussi, who lives near the underground section, said he worries that the line's presence would slash the value of his property by $50,000 to $100,000.

And resident Karen Botiller said, "I just wish it would go away."

The open-house-style workshops continue today with a meeting at Ramona Community Center, 434 Aqua Lane, from 2 to 4 p.m., and from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Warner Springs School, 30951 Highway 79.

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 745-6611, Ext. 2623, or ddowney@nctimes.com.