Becky Long • Clay County Progress John Pratt speaks against the current route for substation/transmission line project while Jim Rich awaits his turn at the podium.
By Becky Long
Publisher
TVA and Blue Ridge Mountain EMC representatives attended the Feb. 5 county commission meeting to explain their plan for a substation in Shooting Creek that includes building 7.7 to 9.5 miles of power line to that substation.
During the public comment period following the presentation the agencies were met with opposition to the current project plan.
After the lengthy meeting, nothing was promised regarding the initial routing plan, but TVA said they are leaving public comment open until spring.
“That’s when we make our preferred route decision. That does not mean its final,” said Transmission Siting Manager Shane Beasley.
Several speakers encouraged TVA to find alternative routes that does not include their properties. The property in question would require about 105 rights of way.
Running the project under the lake was a popular idea, but did not seem feasible to Beasley who said it had not been done by TVA before.
“If we have underwater [transmission lines] I don’t know about it,” said Beasley. “If submarine transmission were a viable option — we would do that.”
“North Carolina is the first in flight, why can’t we be the first to build lines under water?” asked Kenneth Bagwell.
Commissioner Scotty Penland had a litany of questions for TVA and BRMEMC including why the initial open house for the project was held in Towns County instead of Clay, who represents Clay County on the BRMEMC board and why the commissioners were not given prior notice of the project?
“We feel like county government should have been given a call before you decided to do such a big project,” Penland said. “TVA has not proejct calling us when we knock a tree down Our people ask questions and we don’t know the answer.”
Beasley said the location for the open house was chosen simply for its venue. They had used it before when considering improvements at the dam.
Regarding representation on the EMC board, General Manager Allan Glidewell said Clay is represented by Cory Payne and Jeff Ledford.