The public groundswell of momentum against SWEPCO’s approved plan to run a questionable high-voltage transmission line from Benton County through the bottom edge of McDonald County, Mo., continues to build.
Just last week three commissioners in that Missouri border county wrote the Arkansas Public Service Commission to protest the decision of Arkansas Administrative Law Judge Connie Griffin that approved this route as preferred among six choices.
Many Arkansans believe, as do I, that this massive 345-kilovolt line has not been proven necessary, considering the relatively sparse population and electrical needs of the rural residents.
McDonald County commissioners John Bunch, Keith Lindquist and David Holloway asked Arkansas’ Public Service Commission to reject Griffin’s decision, saying no one in authority bothered to notify local Missouri electrical providers, or, for that matter, any officials in that state, of the Arkansas plan.
The Missouri commissioners basically said they respect the sovereignty of Arkansas and expect nothing less from their immediate neighbors to the south. Well, I’d say arbitrarily deciding to encroach on the southernmost edge of Missouri without even discussing such an invasion with those good folks doesn’t show much similar respect, do you?
McDonald County is asking the commission to set aside Griffin’s decision and select one of the five alternative routes, all of which would carve a swath the width of a 10-lane highway across more than 50 miles of pristine Ozark forestland.
And many Arkansans are protesting the concept of (or need for) any potentially destructive route that would run close to the arts- and tourism-reliant community of Eureka Springs in Carroll County.
American Electric Power and its subsidiary SWEPCO reportedly have been using their telephones to survey opinion from residents in the areas that could be affected by their proposed transmission line.
Doug Stowe, a board member of the Save The Ozarks activist organization (which is one group opposing any mega-transmission line through Carroll County) expressed the views of many others, I suspect, when he told me he believes the idea behind the survey is to show that his organization is “merely a fringe group” of whiney aginners. He and others say they expect any data the utility survey gathers likely will be manipulated to try and reflect that view.
“The fact is more public comments have been submitted against this power line than have been filed in all other previous cases before the APSC,” Stowe said. “Save the Ozarks is as much a ‘fringe group’ as the Eureka Springs Chamber of Commerce, which this year named Pat Costner as its Woman of the Year for leading the fight to preserve the economic viability of the tourist industry from the big, ugly, unwarranted line that would mar our visual and cultural landscape.
“Save the Ozarks is as much a fringe group as the Carroll County Quorum Court that adopted a resolution against the power line, or the National Park Service or the Arkansas Department of Heritage,” Stowe continued.
Residents of Carroll and parts of Benton County say they also don’t understand why the state commission hasn’t given credence to the opinions of experts who’ve presented at least six alternative concepts that would provide more-than-sufficient electricity. These experts insist these potential choices are vastly preferable to the route between Shipe Road Station in Benton County and near the Kings River not far from Berryville in Carroll County.
The unjustifiable transmission line SWEPCO plans, critics and their experts also contend, would transport four times the amount of power currently needed in Carroll County. Once connected to a second line, that figure would increase to eight times the necessary power for that region. In other words, they contend, this Godzilla of a power line is intended to pass through the Ozarks rather than to a final destination at the station in Carroll County.
The bottom line here seems to me to be that growing numbers of Arkansans (and now many in Missouri) believe SWEPCO, in the words of one critic, “has gone rogue” in its unrelenting push to stretch its new power line through the mountains to the Kings River. It’s seen by many as a massive line that will not exist to serve the relatively rural communities of Carroll County, rather ultimately to simply pass through the area to service other destinations.
And so the saga continues, with Missouri now full engaged in trying to protect its sovereign property while who knows how many thousands of Arkansans and their credible organizations (most of whom are equally upset over the state quietly and quickly permitting a huge waste-generating hog factory in the nearby Buffalo National River watershed) continue to escalate and elevate their voices in protest.
I’ve heard it said that some philosopher, perhaps Chinese, supposedly once wished that people should “live in interesting times.” I say forget interesting at this point. This interstate controversy has become, well, downright electrifying (sorry, just couldn’t resist).
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Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.
Editorial, Pages 79 on 02/09/2014