Southwestern Electric Power Co. wants Arkansas to reconsider the utility’s preferred route for a high-voltage power line in Benton and Carroll counties.
SWEPCO filed a request for a rehearing Friday with the Arkansas Public Service Commission, which had found the company’s preferred Route 33 to be “unreasonable.” That 49-mile route goes through Gateway and Garfield and near Pea Ridge National Military Park.
Instead, Connie Griffin, an administrative law judge with the commission, approved the 56-mile Route 109 as the only reasonable route, on the basis of residential and “aesthetic impact,” and the three-member commission accepted her ruling as its decision.
About 25 miles of Route 109 are in Missouri, which means regulatory approval from that state would be necessary before construction could begin. Three bills have been filed in the Missouri Legislature to stop the power line construction there.
In its petition for limited rehearing filed Friday, SWEPCO asked the commission to reconsider the finding that Route 33 is unreasonable or consider it reasonable if “minor deviations in the route” are made. That could entail reopening the proceedings to hear more testimony, according to the filing.
David Matthews of Rogers, SWEPCO’s attorney, argued that Griffin’s order approving Route 109 included “a summary of various concerns by some intervenors” in the case, but no finding indicating their concerns were factually accurate or couldn’t be “ameliorated by minor modifications” in the route.
“Rather than discard Route33 entirely, a larger variance from the right of way center line would allow the transmission line to be placed further from the Garfield Elementary School, if the commission deems that necessary,” Matthews wrote in the petition.
In her Jan. 17 order, Griffin granted a 500-foot variance for the transmission line.
Citing a 1994 case, Matthews wrote that the commission isn’t supposed to “substitute or superimpose its judgment for that of a utility for the location of proposed new transmission facilities.”
Where Route 33 was “not unreasonable,” the commission should confine itself to ordering only minor deviations, rather than picking an entirely different route, Matthews wrote.
SWEPCO proposed the power line in a filing with the commission April 3, when it requested a certificate of environmental compatibility and public need for its construction. Griffin granted that certificate for Route 109.
To support the 345-kilovolt line, six towers 130 feet to 160 feet high would be needed every mile, according to SWEPCO’s proposal. A 150-foot-wide right of way also would be required along the route.
Thousands of public comments have been made by people in Northwest Arkansas objecting to the power line. They questioned the need for it and cited potential damage to the environment and tourism, especially in the Eureka Springs area.
The commission has 30 days to consider SWEPCO’s petition for a rehearing. If that petition is rejected, opponents would have another 30 days to file an appeal with the Arkansas Court of Appeals, said John Bethel, executive director of the commission.
Arkansas, Pages 15 on 03/15/2014