GAYS MILLS - Halfway through the event, more than 150 people had attended the BECI 750 kv Transmission Line Open House in Gays Mills on Monday, August 24.
Fifty Midcontinent Grid Solutions employees were on hand to receive them, explain the project, and locate possible line sittings. The open house hosts got an earful of opposition from quite a few of those in attendance.
There were two uniformed Crawford County Sherriff’s Department personnel in the building, and signs posted on the doors that advised people not bring firearms into the event.
While there were some critical words directed at the MGS employees and their transmission line proposal, there did not appear to be any physical confrontations or even heated language.
Interestingly, the BECI line group seemed to be ignorant of anything that had to with MariBell project. They would quickly point out that MariBell was not their project and they could not answer questions about it.
However, several of the community engagement employees provided some rather interesting information about the BECI Line.
Joe Demaree, a Project Outreach Specialist with Transource, a subsidiary of MGS, felt confident that proposed line route and an alternative line route could be completed and submitted to the Wisconsin Public Service Commission by the end of the first quarter of 2027 (March). This could be accomplished, despite only beginning to talk to local residents for the first time in the last week of August, according to Demaree.
“Well to date it’s all been desktop planning,” Joe said.
No onsite work had started nor had the first round of open houses to get public input been completed. However, he remained confident that the planned routes for the projects could be completed by no later than March.
At this point, the map for routes shows relatively short pieces of the proposed line route that are not connected. Nevertheless, MGS remains steadfast in their belief the 190-mile route of the high transmission line could be planned and submitted to Wisconsin Public Service Commission in early 2027.
Joe did acknowledge at one point the routes would not be submitted until they were totally finished in all aspects and ready to be proposed.
Another interesting feature of the meeting was the visual images of the large structures which will support the lines.
Unlike the four cornered 200-foot towers proposed for MariBell line, the BECI line will use a single large steel pole in the center of a concrete pad support by four guy wires.
The proposed structure is not as wide as MariBell’s and may not require as much right of way acquisition, according to MGS.
A major difference between the two projects is that Maribell is considered an upgrade of an existing line, according to MISO, who is in charge of managing grid projects for seven states and a Canadian province. For the BECI line connecting Bell Center to the Columbia Power Station near Portage and then running down the eastern side of state to Illinois, MISO accepted a competitive bid as a ‘greenfields’ project. This essentially means MISO determined it wasn’t feasible to build the necessary line using existing right of ways.
Opposition to the BECI and Maribel lines set up their own information table near the Gays Mills Community Commerce Center, where the open house took place. Interest and conversation was heavy outside the open house.
