A proposed project to run a new high-voltage electrical transmission line through the east end of Perry County into northern Cape Girardeau County is causing concern for a number of area residents.
The problem is, they’re not exactly sure what to be concerned about.
According to Jeffrey Schilling, the latest in a list of five generations to farm land near Altenburg, Ameren Missouri — the main company behind the project, known as the Limestone Ridge Project — isn’t providing enough answers to him, his family and his neighbors.
“I don’t know that there’s anything to it anymore, and I suspect that the decision has all but been made,” Schilling said. “We were late in recognizing what this project was, and it seems to us that this was the design.”
According to Schilling, the fundamental argument that residents in the East End communities have with the Limestone Ridge Project is that the Citizens Electric Cooperative members affected by it are, in his words, “being deliberately excluded from any meaningful involvement in the decision-making process.”
While Ameren is spearheading the project, Citizens Electric, which serves all of Perry County and some customers in Cape Girardeau County, and Wabash Valley Power Alliance are also partners in the venture, which aims to construct a new, approximately 14-19 mile transmission line mounted on 160-foot single poles delivering 138,000 volts across the Mississippi at Grand Tower in Illinois through two new state-of-the-art- substations in Perry and Cape Girardeau Counties.
The proposed in-service date for the project is December 2023.
The primary concern, Schilling said, is the route Ameren plans to take. Three separate routes are under consideration, each impacting dozens of landowners in Perry County.
“Logic argues that this project, if needed, would best be located in Illinois in terms of construction distance, terrain, current infrastructure — highways, railroads, levees — and number of affected households,” Schilling said. “And it looks like this was the original plan, but for unknown reasons this was abandoned in favor of a longer, more difficult, and more disrupting route through east Perry County.”
What’s in it for us?
Steve Elsea, manager of member services at CEC, told the Republic-Monitor that the co-op’s role in the Ameren project, which will cut straight through its service area, is minimal, but that it’s members — particularly those in the East End — will benefit from the project.
“It’s about reliability,” Elsea said. “The Limestone Ridge Project will improve energy reliability, provide additional energy support to local manufacturing facilities, and allow for efficient future expansion of the transmission grid. An additional transmission source from a new direction improves transmission grid reliability, which, in turn, improves local distribution reliability for our members.”
Elsea referred to several incidents in the past in which storms caused a disruption in service to customers in eastern Perry and northern Cape Girardeau Counties. The new line, he said, will make it much easier to restore power in the event of any outage.
“Over the past five decades, CEC has built several hundred miles of transmission infrastructure,” Elsea said. “We’ve even looked at adding a line in this area previously. This new line will allow us to backflow power to our members if that becomes necessary. Anything in Illinois wouldn’t be beneficial to us at all.”
Ameren shares that goal of increasing reliability to its customers.
Elsea added that the new line, which will require a 125-foot right-of-way along its length, would also take advantage of existing transmission lines when possible, cutting down on the impact the line will have.
“You might say this is two neighbors working together to minimize costs and environmental impact,” Elsea said. “There’s no need to build two transmission corridors if we can share one. Ameren also partnered with WVPA to take advantage of an existing transmission river crossing owned by WVPA at Grand Tower.”
“There will be six to eight poles per mile,” Elsea said, “and in some places, they’ll be able to follow along with our existing lines, which will reduce the right-of-way. People will still be able to farm and plant crops under there.”
