April 07, 2008 09:52 am
—
By Roger McKinney
rmckinney@joplinglobe.com
BAXTER SPRINGS, Kan. — If Judy Evans reaches her goal, hundreds of people will turn out for a public hearing Wednesday to oppose KAMO Electric Cooperative’s proposal to build a high-voltage transmission line through Cherokee County.
“We’re hoping we’ll have enough opposition to this that we’ll be able to prevent it,” said Evans, of rural Columbus. Opponents include state Rep. Doug Gatewood, D-Columbus.
Terry Brown, director of risk management and special projects for KAMO, said no specific route for the transmission line has been determined, but the project would be mindful of the concerns of property owners.
The proposal
The public hearing is set for 7 p.m. Wednesday at Baxter Springs High School. The first part of the hearing will allow individuals to ask questions of staff members with the Kansas Corporation Commission, and representatives from KAMO and Associated Electric Cooperative. In the second part of the hearing, people will be allowed to make formal statements to the KCC.
KAMO is proposing a 345-kilovolt, high-capacity transmission line from Jasper, Mo., to Chouteau, Okla., including 31 miles through Southeast Kansas.
Evans said the transmission lines and the large, metal towers on which they are mounted would ruin the scenery and wreck property values. She also contends that the electric lines would interfere with cell-phone reception.
She said that because KAMO isn’t revealing a specific route yet, no one can be sure where the line would be built. She said property owners probably wouldn’t find out until someone with the cooperative knocked on their door to buy an easement.
“If it’s going to destroy anybody’s property, we’re going to oppose it,” Evans said. “They need to oppose it now, wherever it comes.”
KAMO and Associated Electric have filed an application with the Kansas Corporation Commission requesting a certificate of convenience and necessity for transmission rights. Wednesday’s public hearing is on the issue of whether the KCC should certify KAMO and Associated Electric public utilities in Kansas.
Associated Electric Cooperative provides power to regional and local cooperatives in Missouri, including Barton County Electric, New-Mac Electric and Ozark Electric.
KAMO reassurance
“These power lines are not going to be adjacent to any homes,” said Brown, the KAMO official.
He also said that if there is a way to ensure that the transmission lines and towers are not visible from a home, that would be done. He said all potential routes have been examined closely, and the cooperative would choose the one that is least intrusive.
Asked about Evans’ concern that transmission lines would interfere with cell-phone reception, Brown said he has used his cell phone while standing beneath the lines. He said workers at the cooperative’s substations, where there is a greater potential for interference, rely on cell phones to communicate.
Setting precedent
Another opposition organizer is Gary Cooley, who lives four miles east of Columbus.
“We’re not really getting a benefit from it,” he said, adding that county residents nonetheless would see negative results.
Cooley has been distributing literature to his rural neighbors informing them of the public hearing.
“We’re against it,” he said. “We’re paying the price without seeing any benefits. It’s going to have an effect on property values. We can’t build anything when those lines go up.”
He also said that since the maps produced by KAMO show several potential routes, property owners don’t know if they are the ones who would be affected.
“They’re not going to know until it’s too late,” Cooley said.
Gatewood, the state lawmaker, made his opposition to the project known in a Feb. 7 letter to the KCC.
“This proposed route offers no benefits to the state of Kansas through supplying power, job creation nor substantial tax benefits,” Gatewood wrote. “What this does provide is more environmental concerns to an area already suffering from years of neglect of our ecosystem.”
Gatewood wrote that approving KAMO’s proposal would set a precedent of allowing out-of-state companies to set up infrastructure in Kansas against the will of state residents.
Though Gatewood’s letter didn’t specifically request a public hearing, he said he was instrumental in getting the public hearing scheduled. He said neither KAMO nor Associated Electric has any customers in Kansas, so they shouldn’t be considered state utilities.
Resistance?
According to another document on file with the KCC, KAMO officials didn’t see the need for Wednesday’s public hearing. Glenda Cafer, an attorney for KAMO and Associated Electric, in a March 27 document, requested that KCC officials better define the purpose of the public hearing and the issues the cooperatives should be prepared to address.
“Such clarification will benefit not only applicants, but also the members of the public who may be considering whether or not to provide testimony at the hearing, and if so, the nature and content of that testimony,” Cafer wrote.
She also noted that a public hearing on the project already had been conducted on July 25, 2007, in Baxter Springs through the Rural Utilities Service, a part of the U.S. Agriculture Department.
“In light of the division of authority between the Commission and the RUS on the matters to be determined regarding the line, it is unclear what information a second round of testimony from the public at this point is intended to elicit,” Cafer wrote about the upcoming hearing.
Thomas Stuchlik, executive director of transmission operations for Westar Energy, argued in testimony before the KCC on Feb. 11 that KAMO and Associated Electric had failed to show that the project would benefit Kansas electric customers. He said the only thing that could be determined by adding the line is that the power flows would change, but not whether that change would be positive or negative.
Brown, with KAMO, disagreed, saying that if there were to be a demand for electricity in Kansas, the new line could be used to transport it.
Summer ruling
Rosemary Foreman, spokeswoman for the Kansas Corporation Commission, said there is no required deadline for action by the commission, but that a ruling could be expected by late June or early July.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.
Photos
Globe/T. Rob Brown
Gary Cooley, of rural Columbus, Kan., is afraid that potential construction of a high-voltage transmission line would affect his property. He has been encouraging his neighbors to attend a public hearing on the matter.