By Burt Mummolo
WELCH, Okla. — Electricity wasn’t just the topic of the meeting at the Welch Civic Center—it was also in the air.
“AEP wants to look like the good guy,” stated Natalie Bullard with Protect Rural Oklahoma. “We want people to know they’re not the good guy.”
“The entire project is called the Branson 345 overlay,” explained Natalie’s husband, Ben Bullard, who is also with Protect Rural Oklahoma. “It starts west of Wichita, Kansas, comes down into Oklahoma, and it ends down around Branson, Missouri.”
The Bullards have been hard at work trying to stop the project.
Ben said, “There is a lot of opposition, whether it’s at the OCC or just community solidarity in saying that, ‘Hey, we don’t want this project and we’re not going to allow it.'”
Meanwhile, 30 miles away in Wyandotte…
“There’s a lot of concerns that I have about that transmission line and the impact it will have on us,” shared Shelby Bergman.
She and her husband run the Wyandotte Farm School, a 40-acre classroom where kids learn all things agriculture.
“We have approximately 14 head of cattle,” Bergman said. “[We] bring our animal science kids out here, show them how to work a cattle operation, how to administer vaccines and those sorts of things.”
She said the transmission line would border two of their fence lines.
“Are those electromagnetic fields going to have some sort of negative impact on the animals here? On our students that are here that are working, that are learning?”
Just a few miles down the road…
“We built our home here, raised our kids here. We have our livestock here,” shared Kelli Fent.
Kelli and Russell Fent live right next door to the path of the proposed line.
Russell explained, “From our house right here, it’s about 200 feet.”
One of their many concerns is the transmission line’s impact on property value.
“Yeah, there’s definitely a concern of what it might do to the value of the land through here,” Russel said.
FOX23 reached out to AEP, which said, in part, “The Company understands that landowners and others in the community care deeply about this project. That is why we have invested time engaging with property owners, local officials and community members, and have made route adjustments based on feedback received throughout the process.”
Kelli said, “I don’t understand why they’re not using the roads that we already have, the interstate we already have, the easements that are already in place.”
Adding to the aggravation of the imposition, the couple is concerned Oklahoma won’t actually see any benefits.
“What we’ve learned is there’s not really any beneficial value to us local landowners through here,” said Russell. “It’s a pass-through.”
Ben Bullard explained, “They’re pushing this energy from Kansas across Oklahoma and over into Missouri. This has nothing to do with trying to get low-cost energy to right here, to the consumers that it’s encroaching on.”
It’s the story of a proposed high-voltage transmission line facing off against a high-voltage community groundswell.
“We do not want AEP running over anybody,” Natalie Bullard stated. “We want to stand up for our land. We want to protect our neighbors.”
The full statement from AEP Oklahoma Transmission Company, Inc. (OK Transco) is below:
The Company understands that landowners and others in the community care deeply about this project. That is why we have invested time engaging with property owners, local officials, and community members, and have made route adjustments based on feedback received throughout the process.
The routes filed with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission were developed through a thorough review of engineering, environmental, land use, existing infrastructure, and community considerations. The process also incorporated feedback from stakeholders and landowners to help reduce impacts while still meeting the project’s reliability requirements.
