A Texas company announced progress in its effort to build a power transmission line through Arkansas as opponents to the project planned to meet this week.
A news release from Plains and Eastern Clean Line LLC announced last week that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission authorized the company earlier this year to begin selling transmission service for the yet-to-be-built line. The Houston-based company wants to build a 700-mile line to transmit high-voltage direct current, wind-generated power from the Oklahoma Panhandle, through Arkansas, into Tennessee and the South.
Company Executive Vice President Mario Hurtado said last week that the sales will help raise money to pay for the transmission line's construction. Clean Line hasn't said how much the project will cost.
Fifteen potential customers responded to the company's solicitation for transmission capacity sales from May through July, the release said. Seven of them are in central and southern Arkansas. Hurtado said the identities of those companies had to remain confidential for now.
John Lester, general manager of Clarksville Light and Water Co., said the city has been in talks with Clean Line about buying power from the company but no deal has been struck.
He said the tentative path of the transmission line takes it through Johnson County near Clarksville and includes a possible station to convert the power from direct current to usable alternating current near the Nuclear One power plant at Russellville. The ultimate availability of power from Clean Line would be years off, he said.
Clarksville has its own power company that buys hydroelectric power from Independence County and power from the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority. He said half of the city's power comes from renewable resources.
Julie Morton, an opponent of the Clean Line transmission line project downplayed the significance of Clean Line's announcement. She said Clean Line has no contracts signed with any customers and has not reached a formal agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority, the end point for the transmission line, to buy any power.
"The [Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] is a hurdle, but there are many, many more hurdles before they can lay any lines," she said.
Morton said an information meeting set up by opponents of the transmission line is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday in the Student Services Building at Arkansas Tech University in Ozark.
About 150 people attended a similar meeting in Mulberry in April. Morton said Thursday's meeting will be conducted in similar fashion with speakers talking about Clean Line's line-construction plans, right-of-way issues, potential health problems and eminent domain, and time left for questions and answers.
A statement from the office of U.S. Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., said his staff has attended several meetings across the state listening to Arkansans on both sides of the issue.
"There are still a lot of unanswered questions about the project," according to the statement. "It is under review by several agencies at the state and federal level, and we will continue to track this process."
Morton said the biggest objection she had to Clean Line's project is that if the U.S. Department of Energy agrees to partner with Clean Line, the private, for-profit company would have the authority to take land for the easements through eminent domain.
Hurtado acknowledged that Clean Line could acquire the power of eminent domain through the Department of Energy and the Southwestern Power Administration. But he said the company would use the power only as a last resort in easement acquisition to fill in gaps in the transmission line route.
He said the company would concentrate on getting voluntary approval from property owners for the necessary easements. Under its compensation package, he said, Clean Line would pay landowners for the 200-foot wide easements, for each tower the company erects on a landowner's property and for losses such as crop damage or removal of commercially marketable timber because of the easements.
According to a document on the Department of Energy website, Clean Line applied to the department in 2010 for its participation in the transmission line project under Section 1222 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
"DOE has concluded that Clean Line's proposal was responsive to the [requests for proposals], and it is currently under consideration," the document stated.
According to the Energy Department, Section 1222 states that the department acting through the Southwestern Power Administration or Western Area Power Administration has the authority to design, develop, construct, operator, own or participate with other entities to design, develop, construct, operate or own power transmission facilities.
Hurtado said the department and the Southwestern Power Administration have not yet decided to participate in the project. An environmental impact statement must be completed before a decision is made. The statement is expected to be completed next year.
Morton said she and others also object to the proposed Clean Line transmission line because no Arkansans will benefit from the power but will lose the use of 8,000 acres that the transmission line easement will consume.
Arkansas doesn't need the power or Clean Line's transmission line, state Rep. Charlotte Vining Douglas, R-Alma, said. She characterized the transmission line as an extension cord to take power from Oklahoma to Tennessee and marring Arkansas' natural beauty along the way.
"We want [renewable] energy but the trade-off to put a scar across the face of this beautiful state is not a price we're willing to pay," she said.
Douglas said she and other legislators have been working on legislation to respond to Clean Line's transmission line plans. She said the legislation, which she hopes will be introduced during next year's legislative session, may not be able to stop Clean Line from coming into the state, but it could level the playing field between Clean Line and landowners who must negotiate with the company over the easements.
A route for the proposed transmission line has not been set. Staking out the route will wait on completion of the environmental impact statement.
The Clean Line news release said its officials anticipate a proposed route being published late this year when the Energy Department releases its draft environmental impact statement. After public meetings on the statement, a final statement is expected to be issued next year that will include a preferred transmission line route.
NW News on 08/25/2014