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Hernando Today

Property Owners Leave Power Line Meeting Relieved

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By TONY MARRERO

Hernando Today

Published: January 16, 2009

BROOKSVILLE - Russell Peck got to utter the words he'd hoped to say at Progress Energy's open house on the proposed new transmission lines Wednesday evening.

"I think we're free and clear," Peck said after he and his wife Mavis scanned a computer screen with a satellite photo of their property on Rock Duck Avenue and the location of the proposed lines denoted in red several hundred feet away.

It was the sentiment of many of the 400 property owners who came to see how they might be affected by Progress' plans to run new transmission lines from its proposed nuclear plant in Levy County to a Hernando County substation south of Cortez Boulevard.

Some 400 people attended the open house to find out whether their property sits in the energy company's proposed route for the new lines.

All but a few do not because the company will run the lines in existing right of way except for a few exceptions, Progress officials told Hernando Today last week.
Property owners got to see that for themselves Wednesday by inputting their address into a computer to see how close the new lines would be to their land.

Mark and Julie Arguelles were worried they might lose some of their half-acre tract on Grass Finch Road, off Hexam Road. There is an existing power corridor just to their west.

"We were worried about that impacting our backyard," Mark Arguelles said.

The new lines will run along Hexam, where the company already has lines, the couple learned Wednesday. Mark Arguelles had a message for Progress officials: "Leave it there."

The company will need some new right of way along the 60-mile route between the proposed plant and the existing Brooksville West substation, just south of State Road 50. Of those parcels, about 20 have homes on them, and no homes are threatened by the routes in Hernando County.

In most cases, the company will be negotiating small easements, officials have said. Progress is in the process of contacting the property owners but declined to provide a list to the media.

The meeting helped quell the "rumor mill" that surrounded Progress' plans, said Gail Simpson, the company's public policy manager.

"Once they learned the plan and saw we're largely staying in the (existing) right of way, I think a lot of people were relieved," Simpson said.

The fear of lost land was only one element of potential public opposition, however. Now the company will hear from property owners such as James and Joyce McLamb who question the safety of the plan.

The couple own Biguns Barbecue and four other commercial strip centers on the northeast corner of Sunshine Grove Road and Cortez. Progress already has 230-kilovolt and 500-kilovolt lines running on the large lattice structures visible from both roads.

Those lines run right behind the McLamb's property and will remain in place under Progress's plan.

An existing 115-kilovolt line that runs on wooden poles along Sunshine Grove will be moved just to the east and replaced with larger steel poles. A 230-kilovolt line will also be added to those poles.

That will mean 1,075 kilovolts of electricity buzzing above the McLambs' tenants and customers.

"That's too much power," George McLamb said. "It's too much to work under."

Progress expected concerns about the health risks of exposure to high voltage lines. Part of the packet handed out at Wednesday's meeting included a fact sheet about electric and magnetic fields.

The company "funds, participates in and monitors" research into the safety of such lines.

"You are likely to be exposed to higher magnetic fields from some household powerlines than from nearby power lines," the fact sheet stated.

As well, Florida enforces standards that limit the strength of electric and magnetic fields at the edge of a power line right of way.

Engineers are sure to take those limits into account when it comes to height and other specifications of the lines and poles, Simpson said.

"The most important thing is they're built safely," she said.

George McLamb isn't convinced. He says he's hired an attorney to explore options to fight the power company's plan.

Progress has plans to run about 200 miles of new lines from the plant throughout west central Florida. The routes have to be approved by the state later this year. The company hopes to start construction of the new lines in 2012 and have the new plant online by 2016.

Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 352-544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.

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