January 09, 2009 09:42 pm
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By Roger McKinney
rmckinney@joplinglobe.com
KAMO Electric Cooperative has selected a preferred route for its high-voltage transmission line, planned to stretch about 100 miles through Southeast Kansas and Northeast Oklahoma.
Terry Brown, KAMO’s director of special projects, said representatives will be contacting landowners in the next two months about purchasing rights of way for the project. He said surveying is being done primarily by air. Brown added that it would take time to research who owns the property.
Start of construction is still at least a year away, Brown said, and completion is two to three years away.
“This has been a long project, just doing the environmental studies,” Brown said.
KAMO, based in Vinita, Okla., is a generation and transmission cooperative serving 17 distribution cooperatives.
The project calls for construction of a 345-kilovolt line to connect its Blackberry substation in western Jasper County, Mo., to its Chouteau, Okla., substation and the Grand River Dam Authority generating plant.
The cooperative in its literature says the project is needed to correct reliability issues and to ensure a reliable transmission system into the future.
The environmentally preferred route enters Cherokee County, Kan., from Jasper County, Mo., north of Asbury, Mo., near Highway 171. From there, it heads southwest, passing Columbus, Kan., a few miles to the east. It continues southwest, entering Oklahoma several miles west of Picher.
The route passes Welch, Okla., to the east, Bluejacket to the west, and passes several miles west of Vinita. From there, it passes through Big Cabin and heads directly south to the Chouteau substation and the GRDA generating plant in Mayes County.
A map of the route is included in a report finding no significant environmental impact. It was conducted by the Rural Utilities Service.
Tom Hays, another KAMO official, said in April 2008 that the location of the line would be determined based on where there was the smallest population and where there was land available to build the line.
Hazel Kresyman, who lives and owns land south of Columbus, Kan., was at the public hearing in Baxter Springs where Hays made his comment. It was at that meeting that Kresyman said county residents wouldn’t benefit from the project.
Kresyman on Thursday was provided a copy of the route map by the Globe, but said she couldn’t discern for sure if the route crossed her property. She said she remains opposed to the project, but feels powerless to do anything about it.
“I don’t want it here on my farm,” Kresyman said.
She was asked how she would respond if she were to be approached by a KAMO representative about buying any of her land.
“Probably my first question will be: ‘Do I have a choice?’” Kresyman said. She said if the cooperative has the power of eminent domain, it may be able to get her land without her cooperation.
Tax break
Larry Holloway, chief of energy operations with the Kansas Corporation Commission, said in April that property taxes would be forgiven for 10 years after KAMO builds its transmission line, but after the tax break expires, the property taxes on utilities would be higher than those for residents or other businesses.
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