California's move toward an environment-friendly future and green economy is being challenged by an unexpected source: a decision-making process that too often pits the concerns of local communities and conservationists against renewable energy developers. Some of the nation's fiercest environmental battles have been fought in California. Think about the decades-long Bay Area-Delta water wars or the fights over offshore drilling in Southern California. Today, another and perhaps even larger conflict looms: combating climate change.

Utilities, coalitions of cities and special districts, energy companies and investors across the state are already pitching industrial-scale renewable energy projects such as solar and wind farms. New high-capacity transmission facilities, often running hundreds of miles and including towers and substations, are proposed for many areas. And while these projects have the potential to make a meaningful impact on the state's carbon footprint, the communities that are being asked to accept these large infrastructure projects are increasingly voicing concern and opposition.

In Northern California, a consortium of cities, irrigation districts and electric utilities planned to build a $1.5 billion string of power lines, towers and substations from northeast California to Sacramento and the Bay Area – a move that would make it possible to import energy from existing hydropower facilities, and geothermal and wind energy projects throughout the Pacific Northwest, California and Nevada. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District looked to the project by the Transmission Agency of Northern California, known as the TANC, as a critical step to meet new state and district renewable energy requirements. But the project was put on hold and probably terminated in early July after local landowners and environmentalists voiced fears about the impact on property rights and the environment.

In 2005, San Diego Gas & Electric started planning the 123-mile-long, $1.3 billion Sunrise Powerlink transmission line project, intended to upgrade the region's transmission grid and facilitate the importing of renewable energy from solar and wind projects in Imperial County. Not surprisingly, plans to route power lines through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park triggered fierce opposition. Sponsors redesigned the project to avoid this sensitive area, but environmental opposition is still strong, and legal action is likely if the U.S. Forest Service permits rerouting transmission lines across lands within the Cleveland National Forest.

These two projects share common characteristics. Both have depended on the formal, regulatory decision-making process, rather than creating proactive collaboration among stakeholders. This has created an us-vs.-them mindset that focuses on taking political positions rather than exploring common interests. Complex scientific and technical information has often been used to justify opinions and support positions for or against the projects. Time and attitudes have not allowed personal relationships to be created that could focus on a common goal. Moreover, the extent of concern and potential opposition to the projects seems to have been greatly underestimated. Regionalism has also played a role; community activists voice the belief that rural communities would bear the social costs of projects intended to benefit distant cities.

Conservation groups such as Ducks Unlimited and the California Waterfowl Association were among organizations that opposed the TANC project over concerns that it would affect wetlands and wildlife habitat. According to a statement on the Ducks Unlimited Web site by Rudy Rosen of the Ducks Unlimited Western Regional Office, "Power lines in the wrong place can kill large numbers of waterfowl and other birds." Rosen added, "We did not necessarily oppose power lines in general. However, the lines as proposed affected more than just wetlands and waterfowl." The project was intensely opposed by property owners from Shasta County to Yolo County when they learned that their land would be needed for developing substations, transmission towers and high-voltage lines.

John Gamman and Scott McCreary are co-founders and principals of CONCUR Inc., where they are senior policy analysts and mediators. They have worked with public agencies, utilities and industry, and community and public interest groups to collaboratively resolve large-scale environmental policy challenges in California and nationally. Bennett Brooks, senior mediator with CONCUR, contributed to this article.