An upcoming effort to improve electrical transmission in north central Indiana will include a line running through Miami County, officials confirmed this weekend.
Parts of south Miami County will receive 135-foot-tall structures as part of the finalized route from the Greentown-Reynolds Electric System Improvement Project, which will bring an overhead 765,000-volt line to 70 miles from Greentown to the east and Reynolds to the west.
Nick Meyer, director of communications for NIPSCO, said the line’s route will cross through southern Miami County near Galveston as well as through parts of Howard, Cass and Carroll counties, and residents will be contacted for leasing agreements to make the project possible by 2018. A structure is expected to be necessary every 1,250 feet.
“We gathered a lot of feedback and input to determine the route with the least disruption possible,” he said. “Those who are along the final route will be contacted by a right-of-way agent.”
Meyer said the project will have no impact on farming operations, and it carries no health or environmental risks.
“We’re going to do our best to accommodate irrigation systems. That was a major focus in determining the final route,” he said. “This is going to mean improved reliability for the electric grid system… and increased access to regional sources of electricity, which can lower electricity cost. There are direct benefits to those in Indiana as well as across the Midwest.”
Meyer said the project benefitted from several public and stakeholder meetings – none of which were held in Miami County – that uncovered issues with three other potential routes including interrupting future expansion of Grissom Aeroplex. Meyer said the new route will not affect Grissom’s operations in any way.
Miami County Economic Development Authority Executive Director Jim Tidd, who sent a letter to project leaders about expansion of the aeroplex, could not be reached for comment Sunday. Tech. Sgt. Mark R. W. Orders-Woempner, 434th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs, declined to comment Sunday.
Officials hope to develop Grissom’s south aeroplex, which includes the county’s $13.8 million Hangar 200 used by Dean Baldwin Painting and is a tax increment financing (TIF) economic development district, into an industrial hub. Montgomery Aviation also operates a facility there.
Preliminary route options also included land between Bunker Hill and Peru near Pipe Creek.
The project is a partnership between NIPSCO and Pioneer Transmission, which is itself a partnership between Duke Energy and AEP.
Those directly on the route were contacted early last week ahead of the media, Meyer said.