Reporting like this only happens with your financial support. Donate to WKAR today!
The Ingham County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday to oppose proposed routes for a planned transmission line that would cut through a county park.
The power line would span about 50 miles from Oneida, south of Grand Ledge, to Sabine Lake, north of Fowlerville.
The company developing the project, ITC, says it would lower costs and increase the region’s power capacity, “responding to the needs of the changing energy landscape.”
Four of seven proposed routes for the line would cut through Burchfield Park in Holt.
Burchfield Park is the largest county park in Ingham County and attracts about 500,000 visitors per year.
Volunteer trail coordinator Anne Grofvert said the power line would cut a meadow area in half. She stopped and reflected on the possibility while visiting the park before Tuesday night’s board meeting.
“There was a deer out grazing. I stopped and listened to the bird song. It’s just one of the more remote places in the park,” Grofvert said. “It’s pretty impressive that we’ve got this resource this close to town, where you have the opportunity to get away and not feel like you’re surrounded by everything that we deal with every day.”
Some public commenters pointed to the Michigan Natural Features Inventory’s Biological Rarity Index, which prioritizes areas for conservation based on the presence and concentration of threatened and endangered species.
Burchfield Park is given a biorarity score of “very high,” the highest possible designation.
The park has a population of the federally endangered Indiana bat, as well as the only scientifically confirmed population of the threatened pygmy snaketail dragonfly in the Lower Peninsula.
Ingham County Parks Director Tim Morgan said having a power line in the park could threaten the department’s ability to secure grants because it would be considered a conversion of use of the site.
“I think it more than justifies not doing the line through Burchfield County Park for a lot of different reasons, but for no other reason than the extreme quality of the site,” Morgan said. “It’s a linear park, and it follows the river. The dissection, as it’s been pointed out, will be cutting the part almost clean in two.”
ITC Area Manager Breina Pugh said the company has a “very open dialogue” with the Ingham County Parks Department and visited Burchfield Park to discuss solutions.
But Ingham County Commissioner Thomas Morgan said any path through the park would detract from its natural beauty.
“There’s not a lot of PR spin that you can put on 15-story power transmission lines,” Morgan said. “There’s not a way to really hide those without making it clearly obvious that this is a place where we value powering industry over enjoying nature.”
Morgan said the board’s resolution is largely symbolic, noting that the Michigan Public Service Commission will be tasked with approving the project’s final route.
“We are just wanting to make sure that we are getting on the record, that we are amplifying the voices of everyday people throughout Ingham County and those elsewhere who enjoy our county parks, that we do not want big utility corporations or anyone else tearing holes through our public parks or other public lands,” Morgan said.
The company plans to hold seven open houses in Lansing, East Lansing and Fowlerville next month to hear from community members.
Pugh said the company will consider the feedback from the Ingham County board and the open houses when deciding which routes to recommend to the Michigan Public Service Commission.
“We know we have to build a line between point A and point B, and we just want to work with the community to figure out what the best option for doing that is,” Pugh said.
Pugh said the commission will likely prioritize paths that utilize existing right of way and existing infrastructure, which she said is reflected in routes that are along highways and use existing poles near Williamston.
“We don’t have any preferred options or any particular thing that we’re looking at and saying, ‘This is the way it’s going to go,’” Pugh said.
Dimondale resident Dennis Pace said he would be able to see the transmission lines through his kitchen window for three of the seven proposed routes.
“While I don’t look forward to that, I would take heart looking at those towers with the knowledge that they would not be cutting through the heart of Burchfield Park’s natural areas,” Pace said. “There are times when we all need to shift our focus from individual inconveniences toward our collective mission to serve the greater good. This is one of those times.”
