A utility company is planning transmission line projects in the Ozarks, which have included sending notices of purchase offers and threats of potential use of eminent domain to acquire easements. Local landowners are pushing back and asking the Missouri Public Service Commission to require the utility to take additional steps before it can proceed.
Utilities in the region are making investments to strengthen the grid and improve reliability, as required by new regulations in the Southwest Power Pool. Among those is Liberty Utilities, which is building roughly 90 miles of 345 kV transmission line in Missouri. The project includes replacing the current 69 kV transmission line with a 161 kV line along the 26-mile corridor that connects Ozark Dam
Substation in Taney County to the Ozark South Substation in Christian County. Liberty has dubbed this the Ozark-to-Branson transmission line.
Property owners in Christian and Taney counties have filed a complaint with the PSC claiming Liberty should be required to go through the state's transmission line approval process before proceeding with acquiring property. In a news release, Henry/Meuret Eminent Domain Law, the law firm representing the landowners, alleges Liberty is splitting the larger project into segments as a way to keep it under the threshold that would trigger the requirement for the utility to seek a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity. The certificate process would allow the public and the state to explore whether the project was needed, whether this is the right route and what the cost to ratepayers would be.
"Our clients are not trying [to] turn the lights off in Branson," said Bethany Meuret, a partner at Henry/Meuret, in the release. "We have asked the Commission to step in before another acre is taken."
Liberty Utilities did not respond to request for comment by publication deadline.
According to the release, Liberty has already sent 30-day acquisition notices to almost all the property owners and has initiated at least one eminent domain action in Christian County. In the complaint, landowners alleged this Ozark-Branson transmission line would be built on taller structures with wider clearances requiring new and expanded easements across property owners' lands, which qualifies as new construction, not maintenance of existing infrastructure.
"It is the construction of an entirely new transmission line that will carry a voltage capacity that is 233% of the current capacity and will require the acquisition of new real estate assets in the form of new or expanded easements," the complaint stated.
Owners of agricultural or horticultural land taken for certain certified electric projects are entitled to enhanced compensation under recent amendments to Missouri's condemnation laws. The complaint alleges by avoiding the certification process, Liberty would deprive qualifying owners of these protections.
The commission has ordered Liberty to respond to the complaint within 30 days and has directed PSC to investigate and file a report.
Marta Mieze covers local government at the News-Leader. Have feedback, tips or story ideas? Contact her at mmieze@news-leader.com.
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Ozarks landowners file complaint against Liberty Utilities
