Power lines: Not in my backyard

WASILLA — Residents along proposed routes for MEA power lines told company officials the proposed high-voltage transmission lines should not go through their backyards.

Thursday evening’s public hearing at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Complex was the second of two public events held to provide information on, and solicit feedback about, four alternate routes designed to travel to the south of the Parks Highway. Residents generally said they worried about how the presence of the lines could affect their property values, and their quality of life.

Others said they worried about the impacts of ATVs operating within the utility easements. Wheel ruts following the paths of both large transmission lines and smaller distribution lines are a common sight in the Valley.

Others worried about their wallets.

For example, Norma Walsh lives along the most expensive route, what is known as the Southern route. Were MEA officials to choose that route, the lines would come within yards of her house.

“From my perspective, I’d like it to cost the least amount, because I’m single, I have a low income, and I already have property taxes, and they’re pretty high,” she said. “That’s what I would prefer is to have something that’s not going to impact me financially.”

Ultimately, the lines may have to go through somebody’s back yard, she admits, but she’d rather it wasn’t hers.

Several people mentioned the change in mayoral administration that happened between the original vote rejecting the Parks Highway route, though Mayor Bert Cottle pointed out that the deadline for an appeal of what was originally a planning commission vote had passed.

The process unfolded in a way that created acrimony, Cottle said.

The lines “pit neighbor against neighbor, that’s what’s sad,” he said. “They (MEA officials) only brought in one route, so when they brought all of that in the first time and got denied, we said ‘Well, bring back different routes,’ and they brought back the same route the second time. That’s when they said ‘OK, well let’s go underground, but we’re denying the overhead.’”

Officials could submit an application from scratch, Cottle said. However, public opposition drove the original rejection in the first place.

Company spokeswoman Julie Estey acknowledged as much in her opening remarks June 11.

“Our preferred route (the Parks Highway) is off the table,” she said. “We preferred it because it met some of our criteria as far as length and cost and impact, but it didn’t meet one critical criteria, and that was it didn’t meet the criteria of the city of Wasilla.”

Officials with the Valley’s electric cooperative, which recently transitioned from wholesale power purchasing to generation, have sought in recent years to connect the Lazelle and Herning substations using 115 kilovolt lines. The connection would allow the company to improve reliability by creating multiple connections to different points, officials say. A similar loop has already been created to serve the Palmer community.

The hearing Friday was designed to collect information in a formalized way, including hiring both a neutral moderator to conduct the meeting, and a court reporter to transcribe the remarks, said Dave Hanson, the hearing moderator.

“The key is getting the best info we can, so MEA can make the best decision possible,” he said.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.