Columbia River navigators are growing worried as a project to put a 100-mile power transmission line under the river charges ahead without offering ways to mitigate its impacts on the industry.

The Cascade Renewable Transmission project’s 1-foot-thick line would run from The Dalles, Ore., to the Vancouver-Portland area, with most of it being buried under the river.

But shippers worry that the project’s construction may block vessels carrying grain, trash, riverboat passengers and the fuel that keeps Eastern Washington running.

Energy security worries

“There have been times before where folks have been within days or less of running out of fuel,” said Neil Maunu, who runs the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association. “And that’s everything from heating your home with heating oil becaus

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