By Gregg Hoffmann
For WisBusiness.com
CASHTON – The Badger Coulee Transmission Line Project sparked a lot of discussion and debate in this small Monroe County community Wednesday.
Only blocks apart, at the Cashton Community Center, and at the Cashton Park, the perspectives in those discussions and debates could not have been more distinct.
At the Community Center, a corps of American Transmission Company staffers, armed with maps, charts and information packets, cordially answered questions and dispensed information to a steady flow of people.
Meanwhile, at the park, a group calling itself SOUL (Save Our Unique Lands), and the Town of Stark Committee on Energy Planning and Information, held what they called an alternative open house to raise specific questions and concerns about the 150-mile, 345-kilovolt line from north of La Crosse to northern Dane County, projected to cost $425 million.
“It is very helpful and beneficial to hold these open houses and meet local people,” said Sarah Justus, a local relations manager for ATC. “They know their areas best. They understand the environmental sensitivities and impacts of all types. We use this input in making our determinations.”
ATC is in the second phase of public meetings, completing the first round of them about a year ago. Wednesday’s meeting was the third in eight informational meetings which conclude on June 30.
The company is including several “potential corridors” for the Badger Coulee line, which would connect with the CapX2020 line near Alma. “This is the second phase of public meetings,” Justus said. “More will be held in 2012, at which we will discuss preliminary routes then eventually share proposed routes.”
Perhaps nowhere has the public become more engaged in the Badger Coulee discussion than in the Kickapoo Valley area of Vernon and Monroe counties. Concerns are most acute about a potential corridor that would run along a current 69-kilovolt line in the Kickapoo Valley Reserve.
“Environmental and other concerns are understandable in that area,” Justus said. “The existing corridor for the 69K line is the only one being looked at by the company.”
But, at the park, members of SOUL and the Town of Stark, which is in Vernon County, said concerns go far beyond just that one line. “We are most concerned about showing the overall need for this line,” said Ron Danielson, chairman of the Stark committee.
“People who live in the towns near the corridors will be asked to make a sacrifice in land values, electric rates and other ways. We feel the need for this high voltage line should be demonstrated during the public information phase of the process. It is instead determined rather late in the process as laid out by the Public Service Commission.”
Arguments of impacts from stray voltage, health impacts, even environmental impacts often are difficult to argue legally, Danielson said. However, the necessity of the project, and the “carbon footprint” of it, can provide more concrete data to look at.
“We are looking more at ATC demonstrating the necessity for the project, reliability and other economic arguments,” Danielson said, adding that the ATC information is short on economic specifics.
Others at the meeting said electricity costs often increase when millions are spent on transmission of electricity over long distances, and that local production electricity through alternative energy generation could be a more beneficial approach.
ATC argues the Badger Coulee line is needed to provide reliable, efficient energy service to the more urbanized areas in the eastern parts of Wisconsin and Illinois, and that western and central Wisconsin also will benefit with better service.
The line also will be part of a system that can transmit electricity from areas of strong wind energy generation, such as western Minnesota and the Dakotas, to Wisconsin and beyond.
Higher voltage lines “deliver power more efficiently and reduce carbon emissions,” according to the ATC literature. “Regardless of voltage, all transmission lines incur energy losses as electricity moves from where it’s generated to where it’s used,” the literature reads.
“Electricity flows most efficiently and with the lowest losses on higher voltage lines. And where more efficient transmission lines are operating, production at power plants can be reduced.”
ATC also contends that the need for transmission of renewable energy from the high wind areas to the Midwest “has been identified in several regional studies, including the Strategic Midwest Area Transmission Study.”
Transmission is needed “because investing in renewable resources to the west, in the nation’s wind alley, instead of areas with lower quality wind resources, is more efficient due to higher availability of wind, and translates into hundreds of millions of dollars in potential savings.”
But, Danielson and others argue that ATC naturally looks almost exclusively at transmission lines, rather than alternatives, because that is what it’s focused on.
“ATC is a transmission company,” said Tom Krueger of SOUL. “It has not taken a look at generation. We feel a distributed network of localized generation provides a better alternative for areas like this. The benefits stay in the local area.”
Danielson said some big utility projects have been stopped across the country because of activism by citizens. The goal of SOUL and the Stark committee is not necessarily to stop the Badger Coulee project, but to assure that citizen input is seriously considered when final decisions are made by ATC, PSC and others.
By no means is the Kickapoo area unique either, Danielson said. “More than 15 town boards in the potentially impacted area have signed on and are holding similar meetings to this today,” he said, adding that groups in LaValle, Middleton and others have become very involved in the project.
“Groups need to become involved early, obtain a high degree of knowledge and become active in letter writing and other exchanges,” he said.
SOUL groups have developed across the state and region and are raising questions about other large transmission line and public works projects.
Justus said about 500 people attended the first of the recent meetings, in Onalaska, and about 330 on Tuesday night in Sparta.
ATC is sincere in its seeking of such input, she said. “We use an open and interactive approach that involved gathering information and public feedback,” she said. “We do find this valuable and are listening.”
Danielson said the issue “is not partisan” and that he expects there to be “some resistance” to the critics’ movement from ATC and perhaps even some state representatives.
“All we are asking though is that ATC sit down with the public in these early phases, not later, and address the need for this project and other questions point-by-point,” he said.
