GARFIELD - Even with less than two day’s notice, a crowd packed Garfield City Hall for a meeting with officials from the company planning the route for an electric transmission line through town.
SWEPCO plans to build a line to send 345 kilovolts of electricity from west of Centerton to north of Berryville, where both Carroll Electric and Entergy Arkansas will distribute the power to customers.
The company’s preferred route in Garfield, just north of downtown, is what drew more than 75 people Thursday evening.
Three men represented the companies involved:
◊Forrest Kessinger of Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation, which buys wholesale power for 17 electric co-ops in the state, including Carroll Electric;
◊Bradley Hardin, manager of governmental affairs for SWEPCO; and
◊Jeff Milford, manager of external affairs for SWEPCO.
Milford presented a series of PowerPoint slides, giving an overview of the project, He then answered questions from the Garfield City Council as well as questions asked by people in the audience.
In many instances, Milford took notes, and multiple times asked an audience member to talk to him after the meeting so he could get more details.
“If you’ve got information, we need to see it,” he said.
One man suggested the best route for the line would be to follow an existing line that goes through Avoca, crosses Beaver Lake and terminates in the same area as the proposed line.
Milford did not know why that route was not considered. He said he would find out.
Council member Malana Carter asked why the route doesn’t take into account the proposed site for U.S.
Highway 62 bypass of downtown. The city views that area as prime for commercial development, but officials worry that the new line will strangle the potential.
Milford said that consultants who developed the route say “they don’t have any indication the road is moving over there. I’ll follow up on it. If you have a map, show me.”
“We have a map,” Carter said. “It’s the map the (Arkanas) Highway Department has shown us.”
The dangers of electromagnetic fields drew a number of comments, mostly associated with the affect on students in Garfield Elementary School, which is approximately 1,000 feet south of the proposed route.
A man said extreme high voltage lines such as the 345 kv line, “do create a measurable field that you can measure - magnetics.
And magnetics it deals with negative fields, fields that causes disease. That’s fact that’s been found out.”
Milford had earlier answered other questions about EMFs by telling the crowd he would provide information to Mayor Laura Hamilton. She said shewould post all his information - not just information about EMFs - as soon as he got it to her.
Council member Gary Blackburn drew applause and calls of “Amen,” after he offered an emotional explanation of why SWEPCO faces opposition.
“I studied the map, saw the location of the lines in proximity to our school. I became concerned. I want to tell you about this community. Spending half my life here I understand this.
Let me tell you, some 15 years ago they were going to move our school to Rogers - lack of space, lack of space. People of this community, a group of men, borrowed $150,000, signed themselves, took the money.
And they added on to the school.
“Those men never had to make a payment because people in this room held fundraisers, bake sales, paid it off.... Everyone here has an interest in that school.
How many places do you know where the people got together and built their own school?
“This council passed an ordinance, I’d say unique in Arkansas and maybe the nation: You cannot buy a bottle of beer or wine in Garfield before 8 a.m. and between 2 and 4 (p.m.) when our kids are on those school buses.
That’s an extraordinary effort on the part of this council to protect the health interest in that school.
“I’ll tell you straight out,” Blackburn said, “this community won’t sit back and accept hypothetical answers - like no evidence it’ll cost our kids. Just like there’s not documented evidence someone drinking beer won’t drive up the road and hit one of our kids.
“There are other places you can put those lines,” Blackburn said. “Other places.”
News, Pages 1 on 05/01/2013