Kevin Murphy, Leader Correspondent
Shawano County and four towns will receive a combined $4.68 million in one-time impact payments when a 345-kilovolt power line is built and energized in 2019, the American Transmission Co. announced this week.
The towns of Angelica, Green Valley, Lessor and Maple Grove will also receive a combined $281,349 in annual payments for the life of the project called the North Appleton-Morgan power line, which the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC) approved last month.
The payments are made to monetarily mitigate some of power line’s long-term and short-time impacts including land use restrictions, loss of woodlands and aesthetics.
Richard Smith, Green Valley town chairman, said other communities along the power line have called the payments a “godsend,” and he welcomes the increased funding.
“I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a ‘godsend,’ but it’s … considerably more than anything we receive for other sources,” he said Thursday.
Green Valley would receive a $673,138 one-time payment and $80,777 in annual payments. The one-time payment is to be used for environmental-related purposes unless the town seeks an exception from the PSC.
The town board will begin discussions next month on how to use the money, said Smith, which will include the possibility of exploring whether they could be put to use on roads and demolishing old buildings that pose a hazard to trespassing youths.
By statute, the payments are disbursed based on the power line’s $178.6 million total cost and the length of the line that runs through each municipality, said Jackie Olson, an ATC spokesperson.
More of the line will run through the town of Maple Grove than any other municipality along its route and consequently, the town will receive the most money — a one-time payment of $855,309 and $102,637 in annual payments.
The town opposed the line, said Randy Holewinski, town chairman, as landowners did not think it was necessary.
“Why build it if we don’t need it?” he said of the sentiment in the town.
There has been no discussion about how to spend the payments, Holewinski said, but a new town hall may come up. Maple Grove does not have a town hall after the previous one burned down several years ago in a fire department training exercise after the town determined it was not feasible to continue using.
“We’re renting a church hall, which is cheaper to rent than what it costs to maintain the old town hall,” Holewinski said.
County Board Chairman Jerry Erdmann said he has not been formally notified of any impact payments the county would receive when the line goes into service.
“We won’t talk about it until then, but I’m sure it will have stipulations on how it should be used and we’ll follow those exactly,” he said.
The county received about $2 million, Erdmann said, when ATC built the Werner-Morgan power line through the towns of Green Valley, Washington, Waukechon and Belle Plaine in 2009.
That one-time payment funded environmental projects in the county, said Erdmann, who referred specific questions to the Darcy Smith, of the county’s finance department. Smith was unavailable for immediate comment Thursday.
The North Appleton-Morgan project extends 45 miles through Brown, Outagamie, Shawano and Oconto counties, with 53.5 percent of its route located in Shawano County. That means 53.5 percent of the total $8.93 million in one-time payments will be disbursed to the county and the four towns. The four towns also will receive the same percentage of the $536,040 in total annual payments disbursed.
The 345-kV line will be built alongside a new 138-kV line within the same utility corridor but only the 345-kV line generates Impact and annual payments for local governments.
The power lines will zigzag through the four towns in the county. The lines cross state Highway 32 entering the county from the east just north of County Road E, and then head south along an existing gas pipeline to the city of Pulaski. The lines re-enter the county at state Highway 156 heading west along the north side of the highway, crossing state Highway 55 and then turning south at County Road X exiting the county.
ATC will contact landowners this summer for easements and rights of way. Construction will begin next summer and be completed by 2019.