Monday, February 19. 1979
University Daily Kansan
3
Naturalists renew power-line contest
By LYNN BYCZYNSKI
Staff Reporter
The National Audubon Society will try to gain tomorrow to prevent the Kansas Power and Light Co. from stringing a 350k-well power transmission line through an area in eastern Kansas that could become a prairie national park.
Hearings on the bill are to be held by the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee tomorrow at 9 a.m.
The four-month-old battle against the power line will be renewed when the Audubon Society testifies in favor of a bill that would regulate the placement of power lines, according to Ron Klakstate, regional representative of the society.
The bill, sponsored for the second year by State Rep. Robert Miller, R-Wellington, would give the Kansas Corporation Commission final authority to establish KCC to consider environmental and economic aspects of transmission lines.
Currently, the Corporation Commission examines only engineering and safety factors before deciding the fate of a powered oneway line route. Miller said.
The bill also would require the KCC to establish public hearings on the routes as soon as it was proposed by the utility. The KCC would be obligated to appoint and pay for a lawyer to represent the property power the power line would cross.
Klatske said the Audubon Society thought the bill might eliminate one proposed route for a line from KPL's office to the Audubon Center. St. Marys to a Council Grove substation.
The proposed route would cross a 79,000-acre tract near Alima in Waukusee County. It is one of three areas in the United States that would be included in a national park, according to a National Park Service study published in 1975.
The second area is a 100,000-acre site in Chase County in southeastern Kansas. The third area is primarily in Oklahoma, where the proposed site extension into Kansas
"The area is suitable for a park because the grasslands are in good condition, and there are no major intrusions such as power lines, pipelines or reservoirs. It also encompasses some large roadless areas," Klatkae said.
However, the three sites for the park in eastern Kansas have presented a problem for KPL because any line from Jeffrey would have to cross at least one of the sites, according to Hal Hudson, KPL director of public affairs.
"We're considering three routes and we've tried to take into consideration the aesthetics of the environment. A transmission line doesn't do anything the environment except, in the minds of people, spoil their view." Hudson said.
"I'm being facetious when I say this, but we might almost have to bring the transmission line around by Topeka to Council Grove in order to miss them."
Hudson said the transmission line would cost $100,000 a mile to build. That expense would be included in the company's rate base, which means that it would be passed on to KPL customers, he said.
For that reason, KPL has a responsibility to choose the most direct route, he said.
The House bill, even if it were passed this year, might not stop the transmission line from crossing the proposed park site. That depends on whether construction has begun on the line, Miller said.
"Once they start building it, it's not going to be stopped," he said.
And construction of the transmission line will have to begin soon, Hudson said. It must be ready when the second unit at Jeffrey begins operation next summer.
Hudson said KPL had not decided which route would be used or when construction could begin.
Although the Audubon Society is especially concerned with preserving scenic areas of the Flint Hills, it is also supporting the idea of "utility corridors," stretches of land where all information lines would be concentrated.
"When all the power plants proposed for Kansas are built, we could have a huge spider web of transmission lines crossing the state," Klatska said.
A letter announcing the reopening of nominations for a replacement for Ron Calgaard, outgoing executive chairman of the California Board, is expected to reach faculty and staff mailboxes today.
The letter, which is from the committee looking for Calgaard's replacement, was written because of the committee's disaffection with the requirements listed for the position, according to the chairman of the committee.
Search group says it's dissatisfied
The position will become vacant July 1, when Calgaird is to be president of the Board.
The chairmars of the committee, Larry Sherr, professor of business, said yesterday that the committee had met for the first time last week to review the qualifications.
"THE WAS THE first chance we had to
treat these situations," he said. "We felt
we had made a mistake."
requirement that the applicant must have demonstrated a commitment to faculty and staff.
One of the changes, according to Del Shanklet, executive vice chancellor, added a
Shankel said there was one other change, a minor rewording of a sentence.
The letter also expressed disappointment by the committee that few of the 38 applications received by the Jan. 26 deadline were from KU, according to Jeanette Johnson, assistant to the executive vice chancellor.
"The letter said that the search committee was troubled to find that fewer than 10 KU faculty members wanted their names to go forward," Johnson said. "The letter asked them to nominate other faculty members as candidates."
JOHNSON SAID that the applicants would be asked whether they still were interested in the position. Those people who were nominated but declined also will be
side KU, Shankel said. They also will be ask whether they are still interested, he.
About 20 of the applicants are from out-
Shankel said the deadline for new applications is March 1. He had last
month that he hoped to have the committee's recommendations by mid-March. However, he said yesterday that the committee had not least two weeks by additional nominations.
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