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Wind farm power line permit held up

Brookings Register|Ryan Woodard|January 2, 2010
South DakotaTransmission

A pending wind farm project hit a snag in Tuesday's Brookings County Commission meeting when a local telecommunications company expressed concern about the wind farm's potential for interfering with phone lines. ..."We have in the past had some experiences with what's referred to as inductive interference that's caused by wind farms and their transmission lines. And it causes the quality of the services that our company to its customers to suffer severely on occasions."


A pending wind farm project hit a snag in Tuesday's Brookings County Commission meeting when a local telecommunications company expressed concern about the wind farm's potential for interfering with phone lines.

The commission held a public hearing for Buffalo Ridge II LLC's franchise agreement application, which, if approved, would allow the company to "construct, maintain and operate electrical transmission lines and facilities in Brookings County" for the Buffalo Ridge II wind farm.

The application is a standard procedure for any energy or utility company embarking on a project that involves constructing transmission lines on public right-of-ways in the state.

Commissioners on Tuesday tabled the franchise request until Jan. 12 …

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A pending wind farm project hit a snag in Tuesday's Brookings County Commission meeting when a local telecommunications company expressed concern about the wind farm's potential for interfering with phone lines.

The commission held a public hearing for Buffalo Ridge II LLC's franchise agreement application, which, if approved, would allow the company to "construct, maintain and operate electrical transmission lines and facilities in Brookings County" for the Buffalo Ridge II wind farm.

The application is a standard procedure for any energy or utility company embarking on a project that involves constructing transmission lines on public right-of-ways in the state.

Commissioners on Tuesday tabled the franchise request until Jan. 12 in order to address the concerns of Interstate Telecommunications Company (ITC) out of Clear Lake.

The PUC approved in April a construction permit for the $700 million Buffalo Ridge II wind farm, a 306-megawatt project in Brookings and Deuel counties that could include up to 204 turbines and generate enough electricity to power 148,000 homes, according to an Associated Press report.

Clear Lake attorney Todd Boyd, representing ITC, spoke up at Tuesday's public hearing after Commission Chairman Don Larson asked if there was any opposition to the franchise application. Bad experiences

"Please understand that we encourage and appreciate the need for wind energy in South Dakota," Boyd said. "However, we have in the past had some experiences with what's referred to as inductive interference that's caused by wind farms and their transmission lines. And it causes the quality of the services that our company to its customers to suffer severely on occasions."

Inductive interference can occur when wind farm transmission lines are built near telephone lines made of copper, Boyd said; ITC has fiber optic lines in the proposed area of Buffalo Ridge II, so those complications initially won't occur.

However, he said, since the franchise agreement is for 20 years, the company fears that problems could occur down the road if lines are extended into other areas.

Boyd asked that as part of the franchise agreement, the company should be obligated to help share the cost of any action necessary by ITC to correct problems caused by the wind farm transmission lines; that action could include installing fiber optic lines where copper exists to negate interference problems.

Boyd also asked that the Buffalo Ridge II LLC be required to comply with SDCL 49-32-3 .1, which he said requires them to negotiate with ITC to mitigate any such problems . He said that hasn't happened .

Brookings County Planning and Zoning Director Bob Hill said the company had already received conditional use permits through the planning and zoning department for the project and a substation. He said he had not heard any interference issues come about during Public Utilities Commission (PUC) hearings on the project.

"In my opinion, that's where it should be, is at the state level," he said. "With the Public Utilities Commission."

Boyd argued that the PUC would defer the decision to the commission. It's your backyard

"They're not going to the PUC asking for this franchise and the reason they're not doing that is because it's in your backyard," he said.

Falken agreed that the decision was up to the commission, although he said the matter could have been brought up earlier.

"There is a PUC process that talks about the building of this," he said. "I think that would have been the proper time to bring some of these issues to light, but not knowing about it, I guess I understand why you're here today." Legal questions

Falken asked Brookings County Deputy State's Attorney Mark Kratochvil about allowing the franchise agreement with amendments requiring the company to work though potential conflicts with utilities companies and comply with the state law of notification Boyd said had been violated .

Kratochvil said that could be done, but he said he wasn't sure how the statute in question applied to the franchise application .

"I've got some real questions here that I'm not prepared to respond to because I didn't know any of these issues were coming up," he said. More research needed

Chairman Larson said he had concerns about acting on the agreement and potentially violating a state statute. He said the commission should wait to act until the issue had been more fully researched, although he doesn't want to hold up the wind development.

"I think the issue could have been brought forward a little sooner and could have facilitated for this to have been taken care of today," he said.

Commissioners voted by a 5-0 margin to table the decision until Jan. 12 so further research could be done.


Source:http://www.brookingsregister.…

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