By Paige Nash
Emery Belton, an attorney representing Pattern Energy, attended the Bienville Parish Police Jury (BPPJ) meeting held last week to ask for the jury to approve a resolution stating they are in favor of Southern Spirit Transmission establishing a line to begin at the Texas/Louisiana border and travel approximately 400 miles to Mississippi. A portion of this transmission line will cross through Bienville Parish affecting a little over 70 land owners.
Belton provided two maps, one showing a general map as it travels through the state and another showing the route projected to go through the parish.
“Generally speaking this is the route. Although, the company is very busy working with land owners. In some cases there needs to be slight revisions as they work with landowners to get permissions to install the line on their property,” said Belton.
He explained this would be a Direct Current line. The power will be brought in from the Texas Grid System to a $750M converter station that will be installed outside of Mansfield to convert from Alternating Power (AC) to Direct Current (DC) Power. It would ship across Louisiana to Mississippi to be converted back to DC Power, then it will be sold to various energy companies.
According to Belton, this power would also be available to be shared between grids during times of high energy demands and would allow substantial electric ratepayers savings across the region since it will be privately funded by Pattern Energy.
“What the resolution does is basically gives a high level description of the project. It basically says that it is 320 miles of high voltage direct current line with approximately 200 miles in Louisiana and 30 miles in particular here in Bienville,” said Belton.
He also stated that this project would be investing $2B in Louisiana. It would create over 2,000 construction jobs with hopes to hire locally. The line would increase property tax revenue by about $340M with Bienville Parish seeing $26.5M equating to $660K a year for the parish. He continued by saying it would generate approximately $11M in direct local economic impact.
According to the map laying out the projected route of the transmission, it appears that the route will be primarily located in Districts 6 and 7.
“They approach these land owners. Some sign immediately and some take more negotiations and work, but they are progressing at a good rate,” said Belton.
BPPJ President Bates asked whether or not the company held public meetings to get input from landowners to see what their thoughts are on this project.
Belton explained, “I have information on Bienville Parish- how many tracts and people who have signed already. This may give you some comfort. In Bienville Parish there are 76 tracts that are affected. Out of the 76, 66 have already granted survey permission for the company to go across their property and out of the 76 again, 18 landowners have already moved forward with signing the right-of-way agreement itself. The survey permission is the initial authorization and that is when negotiations begin. If 66 of the 76 have already granted permission, then they know about it.”
The right-of-way would be 180 feet. It is determined by the amount of voltage traveling on the line, which is 3,000 megawatts with the voltage being 500 kilowatts.
According to Parish Attorney Danny Newell if the jury passed the resolution stating that the jury is in favor of the transmission line that it would not obligate them to do anything. He said, “It is really not a contract. It is not obligating the police jury to do anything. You are basically acknowledging your support of the project. They would probably like to go to the Public Service Commission to say all the juries support the project.”
District 1 Juror Bill Sims asked, “How many parishes have given you a resolution?”
Belton explained that Jackson Parish, Franklin Parish and Ouachita Parish have granted them a resolution. He will be meeting with East Carroll Parish and Desoto Parish next month, along with Desoto Parish which will be receiving the $750M Converter Station and lines. He has not scheduled with Richmond Parish yet due to high turnover in the jury after the last election cycle. Belton has held previous meeting in Red River Parish.
“There are some folks in Red River, a handful of large landowners, that aren’t particularly thrilled with it. We are going to continue to work with them. They all have lawyers and they are doing their thing,” said Belton.
Juror Sims explained his hesitancy with approving the resolution due to new juror, Keith Duck, stepping into the District 7 seat after the first of the year. He said, “We have a new juror coming on in one of these areas that you are talking about. Right now he does not have a say so. I think we should put this off until we get our new juror here.”
The jury voted to table approving the resolution until the January monthly meeting where they would discuss further and in the meantime work on getting more input for the residents being affected in Districts 6 and 7.
