Overwhelming opposition to Duke Energy’s plan to run a 40-mile long transmission line from Upstate South Carolina to the Asheville area has caused the utility to announce it will re-examine the project. The delay is a victory for the groups and individuals who have vigorously opposed the plan that many feared would severely damage the stunning beauty of the area that would have been affected.
Duke’s response means at minimum that it will not try to force through a project that had little public support and extraordinary opposition. The delay gives Duke time not only to review the 9,000 comments it has received but also, more importantly, to more thoroughly consider alternatives to delivering power to the Asheville area.
“Our goal is to have the best possible plan with the least impact on property owners, the environment and the communities we serve,” said Robert Sipes, Duke general manager of Western North Carolina delivery operations, in an statement. “Concerns about the transmission line and substation — and the potential impact on tourism and mountain views we all enjoy — are significant.”
In an August guest column in The Greenville News, Sipes presented the case for Duke Energy investing in new electrical infrastructure to meet growing needs. He said Duke planned to invest $1.1 billion to ensure it could handle growing demand as communities prospered.
Over the next several years Duke planned to retire the Asheville coal plant, build a 650-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant and install solar generation. Plans were to build a new substation in Campobello, and a new 40-mile, 230-kilovolt transmission line to connect the region and the new plant to the existing electric grid.
Where the plan inspired the most controversy was with the huge transmission line that would run through what some environmental groups called “some of the most ecologically important lands on the planet.” If that wasn’t enough, people along potential routes stood to lose land and have their lifestyles disrupted. Also, the threat of the transmission line paralyzed future land development in the area.
Brad Wyche, founder and senior adviser of Upstate Forever, did not exaggerate when he said two months ago that Duke’s proposal “has been greeted by a tsunami of public opposition.” The opposition was strong, well-informed and highly energized.
Wyche was just one of the people asking Duke not to follow through with the proposed project, and as a reasonable leader should, he proposed a number of alternatives for Duke to provide electrical power to its customers. He said the gas plant Duke wanted to build in Asheville was twice the size of the smaller coal plants being closed, and by reducing the size of the plant Duke could avoid the transmission line entirely.
Other alternatives, according to Wyche, included expanding energy efficiency programs as well as the use of solar energy. “No one questions the need for Duke to provide electrical power to its customers, but there is a better way to do it than through this nightmarish proposal,” Wyche wrote two months ago.
Authoritative and well-organized opposition surely helped Duke hit the pause button on its plans. So did the fact that several city and county councils opposed the plan, and there was a hint of a legal challenge.
Duke’s announced delay clearly is a victory, or at least a partial one, for the organizations and thousands of citizens that have opposed the transmission line project. “We hope Duke Energy will use the next month to come up with a modern and affordable alternative as a Thanksgiving gift for the Carolinas,” Frank Holleman, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, was quoted as saying in a Friday Greenville News story by Tonya Maxwell.
That’s a reasonable hope for people who understand and respect the need for Duke to meet energy needs in our region while it also protects the environment and preserves the character of our region.
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