Residents Fight Electric-Line Plan

Economic, Environmental Concerns Voiced At Hearing

NWA Media/DAVID GOTTSCHALK

7/15/13

Greg Schneider (left center),  of Railway Winery in Eureka Springs, ask a question of Clark Cotten (center),  Arkansas Public Service Commission general staff, Monday afternoon at the Best Western Inn of the Ozarks in Eureka Springs. Local residents and officials participated in a public comments hearing concerning a proposed Southwestern Power Electric Power Company high-voltage electric transmission line under consideration for the area.
NWA Media/DAVID GOTTSCHALK 7/15/13 Greg Schneider (left center), of Railway Winery in Eureka Springs, ask a question of Clark Cotten (center), Arkansas Public Service Commission general staff, Monday afternoon at the Best Western Inn of the Ozarks in Eureka Springs. Local residents and officials participated in a public comments hearing concerning a proposed Southwestern Power Electric Power Company high-voltage electric transmission line under consideration for the area.

EUREKA SPRINGS - About 200 people turned out Monday to comment on a proposed 48-mile electric transmission line across Carroll County, with the first 75 voicing opposition.

The public hearing that began at 9 a.m. Monday will likely continue at 9 a.m. today to give everyone a chance to speak, said John Bethel, executive director of the Arkansas Public Service Commission.

By 4 p.m. Monday, 190 people had signed up to speak, and 75 of them had been heard, Bethel said. Thehearing was to break for two hours at 4 p.m., then continue until 9 p.m.

“Based on the pace and the number, I anticipate that we will be here [Tuesday] as well,” Bethel said.

Those who wish to speak can begin signing in at 8 a.m. today at Inn of the Ozarks Convention Center in Eureka Springs.

Southwestern Electric Power Co., or SWEPCO, applied April 3 to build a substation near Berryville and to run a 345-kilovolt power line from there to Centerton, about 48 miles away. That would require about 288 towers, averaging from 130 feet to 160 feet tall and cutting a 150-foot-wide path. The project would cost an estimated $116.7 million.

Six route proposals would be primarily in Carroll and Benton counties, but alternate routes could include Madison and Washington counties in Arkansas and Barry and McDonald counties in Missouri.

Connie Griffin, an administrative law judge with the commission, limited speakers to three minutes and told the crowd she was there to take comments, not answer questions. Her ground rules included no applause.

Three times during the Monday morning session, people in the crowd applauded those who spoke passionately against the transmission line, and Griffin admonished them.

“Now this is the third time I’ve asked you to quit applauding,” Griffin told the crowd. “If you do it again, I’m going to close up shop and leave because you are wasting time. … I’m going to ask you again, please wait until the end.”

With that, the applause stopped.

Scenic and environmental harm were among the primary concerns voiced during the Monday morning session. Other issues were possible economic harm to the area’s tourism industry and concerns over private-property rights.

Some of the speakers were emotional, among them Joe Foust, who lives 4 miles west of Eureka Springs on Wolf Ridge.

“Two of the routes … would totally devastate my property,” he said. “I want you to do something SWEPCO hasn’t done. … Come walk on this land with me. Walk on the hiking trail that I took years to build and see how foolish and devastating it would be to run this power line [there].”

Dan Mumaugh, a former Carroll County justice of the peace, said damage is being done now because there are “six invisible lines” across the county, and people don’t know yet whether their property will be affected by the final decision.

“My property is no more important than anybody else’s in this room,” he said, referring to land he owns on Pivot Rock Road near Eureka Springs. “We all love our property.”

Mumaugh asked the commission to make a decision on the route soon, “So we can cope.”

A final decision isn’t expected until after a hearing that will begin Aug. 26 in Little Rock.

Another hearing is planned at Embassy Suites in Rogers on Wednesday and might continue into Thursday depending on the number of people who wish to speak.

Cheryl Hoyt of Eureka Springs said Monday that her main concern is the economic effect.

“Tourism is our cash crop,” she said, noting that Eureka Springs has “ one-of-a-kind shops, art galleries and restaurants” in addition to well-known tourist attractions.

The transmission line would be a “50-mile swath of devastation,” she said.

“It will be ugly, and nobody will want to come here to see it,” Hoyt said.

Ilene Powell of Eureka Springs said the line would “destroy over 800 acres of land in the Natural State.”

Powell and several others who spoke are active in a group called Save the Ozarks, which opposes the transmission line.

“People don’t come here to see gargantuan power poles the size of 15-story buildings, over twice the height of the Christ of the Ozarks statue,” said Sean Franklin of Eureka Springs.

The area isn’t appropriate for the power line because of its wildlife and limestone-based karst geography, said Crystal Ursin of Eureka Springs.

“This pollution would travel for hundreds of miles,” she said of herbicides used to clear the 150-foot-wide right of way.

Erin Hayes-Dennis of Berryville, whose family has had an organic feed farm since 1973, said the area is “not environmentally compatible with any of SWEPCO’s plans.”

“It is a landscape with few visible scars,” she said. “The hills are mostly unspoiled in their beauty. … The beauty is a gift from God. A legacy for our children. A SWEPCO transmission line built in Carroll County would change that forever.”

State Rep. Sue Scott, R-Rogers, said she would be in Boston on Wednesday, so she traveled to Eureka Springs to speak at that hearing instead.

Scott said she bought property that had an existing power line. Utility employees cut down several trees on her property and sprayed with herbicide, which was carried some distance in the air, she said.

“The overspraying killed most of the vegetation in my garden,” she said. “A week later, it was dark brown. It looks almost like there’s been a forest fire there.”

Herbicides would “wipe out the organic farmers,” said Mickey Schneider, a 40-year resident of Eureka Springs and member of the City Council.

“They cannot pack up their business and move on elsewhere and start farming again,” she said.

Several people who spoke mentioned working for 20 or 30 years to be able to buy their “dream home” in rural Carroll County. The proposed line and towers would destroy that scenery and cause unknown damage to caves and wildlife underground, they said.

For miles, all you’ll be able to see will be “steel behemoths,” said Enid Swartz of rural Carroll County.

“If you foist this power line on us, it will became a nightmare we won’t be able to escape,” she said.

William King of Eureka Springs said he has been an activist before, but “never, never ever before have I seen such united opposition to a project.”

“This would ruin our economy,” he said. “It is a bad, bad idea.”

Written testimony can also be submitted at the hearings, emailed to the commission or sent by mail.

Thousands of people already have filed public comments with the commission opposing the transmission line. Forty-eight landowners filed to intervene in the process, though three have since filed motions to withdraw.

In its application, the utility stated that the transmission line and new power station near Berryville are necessary to meet growing demands for electricity in northern Arkansas and southern Missouri.

The commission isn’t bound by any of the routes proposed by the utility, Bethel said.

The commission could use a combination of the proposed routes or come up with a new route, he said.

Information on the application and subsequent filings is available on the commission’s website at apscservices.info under the section “hot topics.”

Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/16/2013

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