Pawnee County officials finally get some answers for energy transmission corridor

LARNED, Kan. (KSNW) – Community leaders in Pawnee County spoke with a leadership team from the Federal Department of Energy (DOE) on Wednesday morning to learn more about a proposed energy transmission corridor. Pawnee County Attorney Douglas McNett said that several questions have been answered.

The main issue is a proposed five-mile wide corridor known as the “Midwest-Plains” corridor that would go through much of Kansas. There is also another corridor known as the “Plains-Southwest” corridor that will extend through the rest of Kansas and parts of Oklahoma:

McNett said representatives for the DOE told them they did not coordinate with Invenergy, the developer for the Grain Belt Express Tansmission Line that’s planned for Kansas and is a separate project, when it created the Midwest-Plains corridor.

He also says the Midwest-Plains corridor is not a done deal. It’s one of 10 possible corridors across the nation, and the DOE plans to reduce the number of corridors before the next official comment period and focus only on the areas with the greatest needs.

Below is a list of additional takeaways from Wednesday’s meeting:

1. In addition to reducing the overall number of projects, the scope of the remaining proposals may also be narrowed .
2. The availability of federal financial resources for transmission project developers is not contingent on an inclusion of federal eminent domain authority or federal override authority of State and Local permitting decisions but may require Congressional action to clarify this distinction.
3. The Grid Deployment Team does not anticipate the next Open Public Comment Period occurring prior to November 2024.

Several community meetings have been held so far, including the one that took place on Wednesday. Many people voiced concerns about if their land could be taken with eminent domain.

In Wednesday’s meeting, McNett said they stressed the importance of generational farms and the families that live on the land to the DOE:

“In our discussion, we asked that in its decision-making process as to whether to include the proposed Midwest-Plains NIETC in the final list of NIETC projects moving forward that the DOE consider the historic importance of the generational farms, the families that reside on the land, and the negative impact said designation would have on land values and future development. Additionally, we emphatically expressed the proposed federal rule’s inclusion of federal eminent domain authority and federal overriding of state and local permitting decisions are simply unacceptable,” he said in a news release.

McNett states that Pawnee and Barton Couty intend to coordinate with the Kansas Natural Resource Coalition to oppose the corridor.

Wednesday’s tele-video conference included McNett, Larned Mayor Will Nusser, Pawnee County Commissioner Bob Rein, and members of the Leadership Team of the Grid Deployment Office of the DOE, including Senior Advisor of External Affairs Dylan Reed and Deputy Director of Transmission Jeffery Dennis.

To learn more about the energy transmission corridor, click here.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSN-TV.