By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
On May 8, the Department of Energy (DOE) released a preliminary list of 10 potential National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors (NIETCs). Three months later, the topic has gained steam as landowners who may be impacted begin to question officials about the corridor.
Last Thursday, several hundred people attended an information meeting in Larned.
Tuesday night, more than 200 people attended a similar meeting at the Great Bend Events Center.
Katie Sawyer, state director for Kansas U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, said it's important to know the difference between the existing Grain Belt Express project and the proposed corridor.
"I do want to differentiate real quick between the Grain Belt Express, which is moving through this area," she said. "It is a project that is actively happening and will happen regardless of what happens with the corridor designation moving forward."
Sawyer said the Kansas Corporation Commission's (KCC's) planning and permitting for the Grain Belt Express began more than a decade ago and construction on the project could begin next year. If landowners have not already been contacted by Invenergy, the company behind the Express, then they are not included in its direct path.
"The Department of Energy sees a need to move energy that is being generated to areas that need more energy," she said. "In our case, there is energy being generated in southwest Kansas; specifically wind, but some solar as well. They need to move that out of the state and up to the metropolitan areas of Chicago and further east."
The designation of an NIETC would give the federal government increased authority to override state regulators and lead to federal funding for private companies to build within the corridor.
The proposed Midwest-Plains corridor is a 5-mile wide swath of land that stretches 780 miles from Dodge City to Indiana, cutting through Pawnee, Barton, and Russell counties. Sawyer said Sen. Marshall and others believe the Grain Belt Express would satisfy the needs of the DOE and no plans to construct another transmission line have been submitted.
"Any project that would come to Kansas in addition to the Grain Belt would have to go through the regular permitting process through KCC, first and foremost," Sawyer said. "So KCC will retain the first right of permitting. They have to cite and permit the line like they did with the Grain Belt. What would change is the federal government wants to come in and say if KCC denies it or if they sit on the application for more than a year, then the federal government can approve it over their heads."
Several residents expressed frustration about the exact route of the corridor or Grain Belt project, as well as frustrations about the lack of information regarding potential health or environmental hazards.
Sawyer said the Grain Belt Express would allow current ranchers and farmers to continue their operations around easements that were sold to Invenergy, sometimes in the form of a 40x40-foot base where a tower to carry the transmission lines would be constructed.
"I know there are homeowners here who are being adversely affected by it, and it is taking out homes or buildings or some kind of structure," she said. "I can't speak to any of that. That was decided outside of this context. They purchased easements and the landowners are compensated for those easements. Those are contractual obligations between the company and the landowner."
Residents also expressed frustration that a public comment phase of the corridor project came and went in June with little to no heads-up from officials. Sawyer said the next stop for Sen. Marshall will be limiting the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) ability to approve transmission projects. She said the next stop for the public should be participating in a second public comment period later this fall though no exact dates are known at this time.