N-E/ Neal Cardin Rineyville area farm owner Walt Shipley says a proposed electrical pole placement at this stake will be sit in the sightline between his house and the road, and will also affect his driveway.

Eastern Kentucky Power Cooperative wants access to supply growing Rineyville with power

February 16, 2004

By Jacob Bennett

jbennett@mail.the-ne.com or 270-769-1200, Ext. 428

The News-Enterprise of Hardin County

408 West Dixie Avenue

Elizabethtown, Kentucky 42701

http://www.newsenterpriseonline.com

To submit a Letter to the Editor: ne@mail.the-ne.com

Residents in the way of a planned electric substation and transmission line near Rineyville are looking for help fighting the company's plans to place poles and wires in their yards without landowner input.

The new power lines would require easements onto 18 properties near Ky. 1600, from Owsley Road on to the Elizabethtown-Vine Grove line. The angry landowners, many of whom own farms or large lots, say they're not against the project; they're against the company putting poles and lines on their land without talking to them first.

They are afraid the company will invoke eminent domain, as officials considered doing when collecting land to lure Hyundai to Glendale, and simply take the land it needs in the interest of the public good.

"We've got a very big problem in this country," said Stanley Jozwiak, one of the property owners. "Because our properties are what they are -- fairly large tracts -- they're targeted for this. Very few people are bearing the brunt of this urbanization. We aren't going to have 38-acre farms or 50-acre farms pretty soon. This stuff is disappearing, and it's disappearing because it's easiest to cut up.

"We've got to stop this. The government, the state has got to stop this."

To back up his point, Jozwiak noted that a planned Radcliff to Elizabethtown connector road would go through many of these same properties.

The new substation and a 69-kilowatt transmission line is a project of the Eastern Kentucky Power Cooperative, which wants to build the lines so it can sell electricity to Nolin RECC to accommodate current and future development in Rineyville, the fastest growing area in the county. EKPC officials have told residents they chose line locations by allowing a 200-foot buffer from homes and placing lines where they're less likely to fall onto roadways. EKPC has already bought a three-acre plot near Owsley Road for the substation itself.

An EKPC spokesman said the company is still negotiating with landowners and is open to suggestions. He said the price offered is based on county valuations; he said farmland could still be used for that purpose after poles are put up.

He said half of the affected landowners have already settled.

"If we can accommodate for minor modifications without adversely affecting the neighbors, we try to do that," EKPC spokesman Kevin Osbourn said. "We try to generate solutions that solve the electric problem. At some point, we have to finalize the route and move on."

Some of the landowners say company officials have been less than enthusiastic about hearing landowner suggestions.

"They have not made any attempt to talk to property owners about where to put the easements," said Walt Shipley, who is upset that a pole will be placed just a couple of feet from his driveway. "They've come in here with Gestapo tactics."

Shipley is also upset that EKPC is offering differing -- and often low -- prices for the land. The company told the landowners it is offering less because it is not actually buying the land; it is paying one-time rent for permission to put equipment on the land. Shipley and Jozwiak contend that once the poles are placed in their yards, those acres are useless from then on.

"I'm not against power and that sort of thing," Jozwiak said. "By god, there needs to be a price to be paid for that. You can compensate people monetarily, but you can't compensate people for parceling off their land and destroying their quality of life."

Shipley said he might technically still own pole-scarred acres, but the company equipment will still be there " 'til death to us part."

Shipley and Jozwiak have collected letters from about half the affected landowners, asking the Kentucky Public Service Commission for help. A spokesman for the PSC said the agency could only stop the company from building if it is determined the lines are being built on a site that already has enough power. In Rineyville, there is no reason to believe the new station isn't necessary, he said.

However, the service commission will try to arrange a meeting between company officials and upset landowners to try to find a middle ground, spokesman Andrew Melnykovych said.

"All we can do is try to get them to sit down and get them to talk," he said.

So Jozwiak and the other residents just have to wait and hope EKPC can adhere to their wishes.

"There's no justice to the system, there really isn't," Jozwiak said.

http://www.newsenterpriseonline.com/articles/2004/02/16/news/news01.txt