WPS sues landowners over survey
Company wants right to inspect for power line

By Amy Kimmes
Wausau Daily Herald
akimmes@wdhprint.com

A Wisconsin utility company is suing more than 70 Marathon County landowners to force them to allow the company onto their property to do survey work prior to installing a highly disputed power line.

Wisconsin Public Service Corp. plans to build a 345,000-volt transmission line from Minnesota Power Co.'s Arrowhead Substation near Duluth to WPS' Weston Substation in Rothschild.

"My biggest concern, if I look at the whole picture, is the amount of prime land they will destroy with the power line," said town of Mosinee resident Ernie Walters, 74, who was unaware of the complaint filed against him until notified Thursday by the Wausau Daily Herald. 
"They want to put in a line that would cut diagonally across three 40-acre sections of my land," Walters said. "I asked them not to go across the land and stay along the property lines, but they didn't want to do that. If they would have considered my request, I would have been willing to let them on my land."
Walters and his wife, Evelyn, refused in January to let WPS on their 240-acre farm for land surveys, as did other property owners who have complaints filed against them.

WPS is doing what is necessary under plans approved by state regulators on the Public Service Commission, said Dave Valine, substation engineering manager at the company's Green Bay headquarters.

"We're ordered to construct the line for the public good," Valine said. "It's unfortunate we have to build the line on somebody's property ... but the route has been finalized and approved and we need to do it."
WPS officials want access to the land within the next few weeks. Construction of the power line is expected to begin this year and be complete in 2005, according to the company's Power Up Wisconsin Web site.

Valine said the papers filed in Marathon County are not asking to take anyone's property, although the complaint filed against the Walterses mentions that the company will seek to condemn land as necessary through eminent domain laws.

"This is for nondestructive engineering work," Valine said, referring to the survey phase. The purpose is to determine the location of property lines, underground utilities and the like so WPS can use the data, along with its aerial survey, to design the power line.

Gladys Baumann, 66, of Marathon, wife of Donald Baumann, 66, who also has a complaint filed against him, said they have no intention of letting WPS onto their property.

Nor do they want the power line on their land.

"Our son, Mike, is farming here and he'd have to quit farming," Gladys Baumann said. "He's afraid of the stray voltage a power line would cause."
WPS has said the power line is needed to ensure reliable electric power to residents in Wisconsin, Minnesota and the rest of the Upper Midwest.

But Marathon County residents say their communities don't need more power and don't think they should lose land and have pristine areas destroyed to supply power elsewhere.

"I'm going to be 75 years old, and this is basically my 401(k)," said Walters, who also is the town of Mosinee chairman. "This is what I worked for all my life. Being a farmer, I don't have a pension plan or anything like that. I'm at a point where I should be selling my property, but the power line will ruin its value."
According to records at the Marathon County Courthouse, landowners will have 45 days to respond to the complaint after they receive a summons.

WPS attorney Thomas Terwilliger said WPS will soon serve papers to the landowners.