The Wind Coalition Developing the Nations Wind Corridor

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Feb 11, 2010

Wind-generated electricity will require wide swaths of land

Wind-generated electricity will require wide swaths of land
Editor's note: This story originally appeared Sunday, Feb. 7, exclusively in the print edition of the San Antonio Express-News.

JUNCTION — The vast wind farms of West Texas promise to put a dent in the demand for coal-fired electric plants. But delivering that green energy to where it's needed most — the state's biggest cities — will leave scars on some of the most coveted land.

About 2,400 miles of new transmission lines will slice through the state and parts of the Hill Country, laced across hundreds of steel towers taller than the Superman: Krypton roller coaster at Six Flags Fiesta Texas. A swath of land as wide as a football field will be cleared to make way for the towers.

It's the largest expansion of the state's electric grid and will alleviate a bottleneck in wind power's growth. The $5 billion cost will be passed on to ratepayers throughout the state.

The process of determining where the 180-foot-tall towers and lines will be built has been sped up and pits landowners against the government and neighbor against neighbor.

The Hill Country is at the center of one of the most contentious disputes.

The Lower Colorado River Authority Transmission Services Corp., a public utility, will build 600 miles of lines and has the power of eminent domain, also known as condemnation, to get it done. So far, it has recommended a route and alternatives for about 80 to 90 miles, which could pass by Enchanted Rock.

This week, that route connecting a substation outside of Fredericksburg to one near Killeen is being debated before State Office of Administrative Hearings Judge Wendy Harvel. With no available courtroom large enough to hold all the lawyers involved, the judge is presiding at the Thompson Conference Center on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin.

Landowners, conservation groups and politicians have until April to exert whatever influence they can on the three governor-appointed members of the Public Utility Commission, which will make the final decision.

The same process will be repeated this summer for a line from north of Eldorado to the same substation outside Fredericksburg.

'Our last chance'

LCRA, like the other utilities building lines, is required to build them as cheaply as possible and looks for the shortest route while also considering the environmental, social and economic effects.

As the growth of cities and towns and the subdivision of land for more homes drives up demand for power, it also had made routing of lines more difficult.

“The population growth is creating the need and the population growth is also making the transmission lines more contentious,” said Krista Umscheid-Ramirez, an LCRA spokeswoman.

Property owners realize they can't stop the lines but want to minimize the effect on their land values and the views they covet.

“It's still somewhat like the good Lord made it,” said Buzz Hull, a homebuilder whose clients already have delayed or canceled several projects because of the uncertainty about the lines' routes.

“This is our last chance to get it right.”

The Sierra Club supports wind power and the transmission line expansion but is pushing for the route to follow existing utility lines and highways, such as Interstate 10, even if it is more expensive.

“It's a difficult quandary because you can't locate a transmission line without upsetting someone,” said Cyrus Reed, conservation director of the Lone Star Sierra Club. “You are going to disturb areas, obviously ... there is no perfect energy solution.”

To meet a 2013 deadline, the PUC cut its review process in half, giving 181 days for each of the transmission segments to be proposed, reviewed and approved. If the commissioners can't agree on a route, the preferred route of the utility is selected by default.

“What people are concerned about is the lack of control over the situation,” said Bill Neiman, who raises native grass seed on a farm north of Junction. His property could be crossed by one of the transmission lines.

Neiman is president of Clear View Alliance, formed to represent landowners who might be affected by the new lines. He wants, at the least, the process to be re-evaluated.

From his farm, Neiman can see a new electric transmission line spanning to the horizon. The steel towers glint in the sun as they march down the middle of a corridor of cleared land toward the white cliffs of the Edwards Plateau and the edge of the Hill Country.

This line, built by a private company, is a harbinger of what could come his way.

The company, NextEra Energy, a subsidiary of the FPL Group and the largest generator of wind and solar power in the United States, wasn't required to conduct public meetings about the privately financed route. But it didn't have the power of eminent domain like LRCA, so it had to find the price landowners were willing to sell an easement for. The private negotiations had neighbors competing against each other to get the highest price or the least intrusion on their land.

The line now zigzags along the property lines of willing sellers as it makes its way to a substation outside Comfort. Those who did not sell but still have to see it are bitter.

The landowners who sold an easement to the company agreed not to disclose the amount they received, but offers of $200 per foot of easement were turned down as too low.

LCRA won't discuss how much it is willing pay for an easement.

And while Neiman does not like the NextEra line, he at least knew the company couldn't force its line across his land.

He doesn't have that assurance about the LCRA line, which was going to be one of the first built.

Instead of fighting each other, he encouraged his neighbors to come together and they helped persuade LCRA to slow the process and consider more alternatives, like moving the line away from undeveloped land to existing transmission corridors.

State and local public officials also weighed in.

“I know the routing process is never easy,” House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, wrote in a letter to Barry Smitherman, the chairman of the PUC. “But there appears to be some consensus in this case that the use of existing right of way and state highway right of way could be a workable path forward.”

The commission granted LCRA more time to expand its study area to include I-10, and the routing decision was delayed until summer.

One place where the LCRA is being urged to compromise is on its selection of towers. The utility prefers the cheaper lattice structures to the “mono” poles, which were used by NextEra.

If the private company can afford the less obtrusive mono poles, then so can the public utilities. Since the extra cost of longer routes and better poles will be spread over decades of use and millions of ratepayers, it's not significant long term, Neiman said.

Reed agreed, adding that the initial routing decisions will have consequences for years to come as the growth of wind and solar power requires more lines along the route.

“We think a large amount of wind power to transition away from coal-fired power plants is necessary and a positive development for Texas,” he said. “But you want to get it right the first time.”

The route selection is important not only for its effect on people and property values, but for the environment as well.

Bulldozing habitat

In its review of LCRA's proposed route, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department raised concerns that the utility and its consultants weren't considering the wildlife habitat that would be lost by the construction of the lines or the impact on state parks, especially the view from the top of the granite dome at Enchanted Rock.

In a letter to the PUC, the department asked LCRA to set aside land to make up for all wildlife habitat the line would disturb and consider a route that would not be visible from Enchanted Rock State Park.

“Such close proximity to the summit would permanently diminish the scenic beauty of the Enchanted Rock view shed and seriously threaten the viability of the park,” wrote Karen Clary of the department's wildlife habitat assessment program.

To the consultants at PBS&J, which did the environmental assessment for LCRA's route proposal, Clary's comment simply is one more opinion to consider.

As Rob Reid of the consulting company explained in a deposition he gave before this week's hearing, the environmental damage and effects on parks from the lines are one of several measures to be considered in route selection and by no means are they a “show stopper” for any route.

His firm did avoid all documented and federally protected endangered species habitat. But it would be impossible to avoid all potential habitat, and those effects would have to be dealt with after the PUC selected a route, he said.

Also, Reid said the LCRA already is working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to negotiate mitigation for the endangered species habitat that will be destroyed.

But, Reid pointed out, he knew of no state law requiring the utility to replace anything other than what is federally protected. The LCRA would not be making any in-kind donations, he said.

As for the view from the top of Enchanted Rock being affected by the 180-foot-tall towers, that is a subjective opinion and the route is only one of several alternatives.

“Dr. Clary fails to note the existing man-made features that are visible from the summit, such as roads, houses, (and) a gypsum mine,” Reid said, pointing out the towers would not physically block the 360-degree view from the summit, although they would be visible and some would be higher than the rock itself.

It's up to the PUC, not the LCRA or any other agency or party, to justify the additional expense of longer routes or more visually pleasing towers, Reid said.

For the utility, it has two points to connect and three commissioners to please and only a few months to do it in.

“And we are just trying to find the best way to get there,” said Umscheid-Ramirez of LCRA.

 

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