Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
The Jefferson County Commission is scheduled to hold a special meeting at 6 p.m. on Monday, June 22, to consider the proposed settlement agreement with NextEra Energy relative to the 176-mile 161-kv transmission line, called the North Florida Resiliency Connection.
The meeting, which is to be video-streamed, will focus on the agreement that Attorney David Collins negotiated on behalf of the county with Eric Silagy, president and chief executive officer of Florida Power & Light Company (FPL), a subsidiary of NextEra, as is Gulf Power Company, which is the main player behind the transmission line. Pamela Rauch, FPL vice president of external affairs and economic development, and R. Wade Litchfield, FPL vice president and general counsel, will likely be representing the energy company in person at the commission meeting, as will be Collins.
Rauch and Litchfield visited the Monticello News office earlier this week to talk about the project and the proposed agreement, which commits an estimated $3,335,000 to Jefferson County in direct contributions or services, contingent on the commission rescinding the recently adopted ordinance that aims to regulate transmission lines.
The proposal, in brief, earmarks about $500,000 for parks and recreation, $500,000 for public works, $120,000 for education and training, $215,000 for energy and conservation, and $2,000,000 in possible emergency management services grants. A more specific breakdown of the amounts pledged and the endeavors that they are intended to fund was reported in the Monticello News on Wednesday, June 17. It's worth noting, however, that the money and services that NextEra is committing are contingent on the rescission of the ordinance, and that the cited amounts are often only targets, subject to meeting established deadlines and the availability of grant funds.
It's also worth noting a few of the points that Rauch and Litchfield underscored or clarified to the News relative to the proposal and the transmission line.
The two said that a misconception existed as to the type of structure that would be used for the 161-kv transmission line. They underscored that the type of structures that would be used in the line would not be the massive H-frame structures that exist in other parts of the state and that some residents feared would be utilized here.
“The ones here will be single concrete poles,” Rauch said, indicating an artist's rendering of the poles' deployment along the Waukeenah Highway.
In terms of the concerns about the possible ill health effects of transmission lines, Litchfield said that such lines were regulated by both the Public Service (PSC) Commission and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) and were required to comply with the set standards for electromagnetic fields (EMFs).
“We have to certify compliance with the standards,” Litchfield said.
Many people believe that EMFs can cause cancer and other adverse health effects. The FDEP and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which regulate transmission lines to one degree or another, hold that power lines have a much lower frequency than other types of electromagnetic radiation – such as microwaves, radio waves and gamma rays – and that humans are constantly exposed to EMTs because of the widespread use of electricity.
By the same token, the two agencies acknowledged that the jury is still out on the issue.
“Scientific studies have not clearly shown whether exposure to EMF increases cancer risk,” states the FDEP/EPA websites. “A few studies have connected EMF and health effects, but they have not been able to be repeated. This means that they are inconclusive. Scientists continue to conduct research on the issue.”
The two agencies' advice to people with health concerns about EMFs is to “increase the distance between yourself and the source,” and “limit the time spend around the source” to lower the exposure.
Asked to address local residents' concerns that the 161-kv transmission line is merely the nose of the camel in the tent, and that once the line is installed, NextEra will likely increase the voltage and magnitude of the system in the future, Litchfield's was a qualified response.
He said the company currently had no plan to increase the voltage – the operative word being currently.
But should the system be ramped up to say a 230-kv system in the futue, he said, it would not require adding new lines or structures. The changes, he said, would be accomplished at either ends of the transmission line.
“It would not require new lines or poles,” Litchfield said, adding that there would likely also be host of permitting loops.
In fact, he said, the current project was still undergoing the permitting process.
The two confirmed that the transmission line would follow the Waukeenah Highway, but said it would not impact Wacissa, a point also made by Collins.
Rauch acknowledged that NextEra is the world's number one producer of renewable energy from sun and wind and a world leader in battery storage, which is also highlighted in the company's promotional literature.
The promotional literature also states that Gulf Power is working with its sister company, FPL, “to advance solar in Northwest Florida, “with plans to build approximately 1,560 megawatts of new solar energy by 2024, a point underscored by Rauch.
Yet, the two suggested that the fact that numerous solar operations that have expressed an interest in locating in Jefferson County in the last year or so is incidental to the proposed transmission line, as these solar operations would be selling whatever energy they generated to Duke Energy, not NextEra.
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