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October 19, 2001

Judge sides with landowners
in power line dispute

By Lana Robinson
Field Editor

Chalk one up for the landowners in the latest development in a two-year power struggle between Corpus Christi-based American Electric Power-Central Power & Light Company (AEP-CPL) and South Texas farmers and ranchers over a 52-mile stretch of land the power company wants for lines to transmit power to other markets. On October 8, Travis County District Judge Darlene Byrne granted a motion to stay, prohibiting AEP-CPL from constructing on any of the plaintiffs' properties. Jan. 25, 2002 is the date set for a trial on the merits.

"This is wonderful news. We have won the first round in Judge Byrne's court. It greatly strengthens my belief that because we are right and AEP-CPL and the Public Utilities Commission are so wrong, we will prevail on Jan. 25, 2002, as we should," said Henry A. Miller, spokesman for the grassroots group, which includes a number of Farm Bureau members and leaders from Karnes and Gonzales counties.

But the favorable ruling does not come without a price. In order for the stay to go into effect, landowner/plaintiffs must post a $260,000 bond. And they've already been out a sizeable sum fighting the construction of the controversial 345-kilovolt transmission line that would extend from AEP-CPL's Coleto Creek power plant in Goliad County to a proposed substation in Pawnee in northwestern Bee County.

The landowner group insists the line is unnecessary, and first challenged AEP-CPL during the permitting process last year to prevent its construction on their properties. The landowners argued that, at the very least, the utility company should use an existing right of way along their fence lines, where transmission lines carrying 138,000 volts of electricity already exist. By cutting a new path, AEP-CPL will be building on virgin land, impacting nearly 100 South Texas landowners, crossing 67 properties diagonally and essentially destroying 30,000 acres in the two counties, according to Miller. In the event the line proceeds over their wishes, the landowners suggested using monopole construction, which presents fewer difficulties for farmers with equipment and are not quite as big an eyesore as the proposed mammoth lattice towers.

In March 2000, the PUC required AEP-CPL to appear before an administrative law judge to prove that the transmission line was, indeed, needed. After five days of testimony, Judge Barbara Owens found that AEP-CPL failed to prove its case. Owens sided with landowners, ruling that the original justification for the line no longer existed because the number of power plants built in South Texas since 1998 had filled the perceived power gap.

That should have been it, Miller said. But PUC commissioners ignored Owen's ruling and approved the utility company's application. Miller has since said it is hard to imagine under what circumstances the utility commission would deny a permit, noting that of 114 applications to build lines filed between 1995 and 1998, only one was denied.

During the last legislative session, Rep. Judy Hawley (D-Portland) sponsored a bill, backed by the Texas Farm Bureau, which would put into law the common courtesy provisions requiring the utility companies to strive for routings that are the least intrusive to landowners granting these rights-of ways. Lobbyists for the utilities opposed the measure, stalling it in committee. Subsequently, the PUC passed a rule which essentially asked for the same thing.

Gary Joiner, Texas Farm Bureau associate legislative director, said, "They are now saying in no uncertain terms that electric utilities, please look at the alternative routes in crossing a landowner's property before assuming that the most appropriate route is just straight right across to connect point A to point B."

Joiner went on to say the organization is hopeful that an interim study will be completed in the Texas House in this next year preceding the 2002 session of the Texas Legislature.

"We're hoping these interim studies will bring forward information and some actual testimony from some affected landowners and interested groups that are hoping to seek resolution to some of these problems that they're encountering in the country," said Joiner, adding that often times, actual legislation arises out of the interim studies that is brought to the next session of the Legislature.