A collection of experts, state officials and Arkansas taxpayers voiced their opposition Monday to a proposed high-voltage power line carrying Oklahoma wind energy that would cut across the northern third of the state.
Before a joint gathering of the Legislature's State Agencies and Governmental Affairs and Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development committees Monday afternoon, a dozen witnesses cautioned legislators about the effect of the wind-energy transmission line on property values, as well as its effects on duck migration and hunting-related tourism.
State Rep. John Hutchison, R-Harrisburg, headed the state study considered at the hearing, and urged the large group of lawmakers to join witnesses' opposition to the proposed utility line, which would serve Arkansas and other Southern states.
But Rep. Andrea Lea, R-Russellville, chairman of the state agencies committee, said it was "too premature" for the committee to make any move until further testimony, study and action by the federal government.
Clean Line Energy Partners, the company wanting to install a line that critics say will eat up a 250-foot swath over a range of about 250 miles, applied with the Arkansas Public Service Commission to be recognized as a public utility in 2010.
In early 2011, the commission denied the company's request, saying that its plans did not include a way to provide the energy to Arkansans and so disqualified it from being considered as a public utility.
Clean Line has since gone to the U.S. Department of Energy and is seeking public utility status to use eminent domain to secure a path for the line.
The group's executive vice president, Mario Hurtado, said the line could provide power to around 160,000 Arkansas households as well as create hundreds of construction jobs.
"Arkansas imports wind power from outside of Arkansas ... this converter station would allow [Arkansas] to double those purchases," Hurtado said in an interview. "It boils down to jobs. Part of it is investment ... and talking about people having good-paying jobs during the construction period."
Hurtado acknowledged the opposition, saying, "we take it seriously."
Many who testified Monday didn't trust the promises of jobs, or safety, made by Clean Line Energy. Others said they resented that eminent domain could be used to eat up land in parts of the state that have belonged to families for generations.
Many also worried about the environmental effect, including the effects that construction could have on drinking-water wells in rural areas and on ducks and other waterfowl that draw hunters and tourists to the region.
Game & Fish Commission Director Mike Knoedl said that bird deaths in the area would be "astronomical" because of the high lines and towers, some as tall as 200 feet.
Randy Young, director of the state's Natural Resources Commission, said it was too early to know what the environmental effect would be and that the U.S. Department of Interior is finishing of its own environmental impact study.
Metro on 11/12/2014