FirstEnergy Open House Fail

The people of Aurora, Ohio, were ready for FirstEnergy last week, and it looks like its "Open House" effort to charm and pull the wool over everyone's eyes was a complete failure.  FirstEnergy may have counted on light attendance to overwhelm and baffle its critics.  Instead, it got this:

Hundreds packed a public open house convened by FirstEnergy Monday night to reveal plans for the Northern Portage Reliability Project.

The big room at Christ Community Chapel was built to hold 350 and it was so packed that people were turned away within the first half-hour of what was to be a two-hour event.
As the open house began at 6 p.m., traffic was backed up for almost half a mile between the chapel just off Ohio 306 and Ohio 82 to the south.

FirstEnergy employees, contractors and consultants staffed themed tables around the periphery of the room. They included stations entitled Engineering & Construction, Vegetation Management, Environmental, Real Estate and Route Selection. The company created a large centerpiece with big photos on easels showing various points where the company wants to put in power lines. The event was designed for people to circulate, but the crowd made navigation around the room difficult. Some attendees complained that there was no public give-and-take between the company and residents as one might have at a town-hall style event.

Oh no!  People turned away, you say?  Guess you'll have to be punished with more dog & pony shows, FirstEnergy.  Punishment?  But of course!  The pictures tell the tale, and they look just like every other set of news photos of a transmission line "Open House."  Shocked and angry landowners glaring aggressively, transmission company employees making animated faces and hand gestures as they try mightily to make their lies believable.  Aurora clearly wasn't buying FirstEnergy's story.

And why should they, when FirstEnergy is clearly making crap up as they go along.  Why else would there be two different takes on burial costs?

According to FirstEnergy, the cost to run the lines underground along the rail corridor would be three to seven times more expensive than using utility poles.

Or

First Energy has said the underground scenario could create a 10-fold increase in the cost of the project and the above-ground rerouting would be longer that the former rail line, and would send the lines over roadways and home owners’ yards.

Pop quiz!  How  much does it really cost to bury transmission lines?

Who could believe anything FirstEnergy says?  It's obvious that depending on who you ask, you're likely to get a different answer.  And some of the answers are conflicting, such as this one:

Jennifer Young, a spokeswoman for the company, said the lines will be carried by 60-foot wood poles and those might be reduced to 45 footers, making them lower than nearby trees.

You mean the height of transmission lines is a purely elective thing?  I thought safety standards dictated clearances to the ground.  If the lines are as safe at 45 feet as they are at 60, why in the world would you have ever planned to build them at 60 feet?  60 foot towers are probably more expensive  and maybe more obtrusive, and definitely more objectionable.  Why would you do that unless it was a safety requirement?  I simply don't believe you that the height of the line "might be" reduced to 45 feet.  The only thing that could reduce the height of your project would be if you eliminated a proposed double circuit that would have required additional height clearances, and where would FirstEnergy be with its redundancy and reliability claims if it built a double circuited line?  This is obviously an empty promise.

I wonder who the genius was who came up with this idea: 

Beach said FirstEnergy measures the viability of various routes by their potential impact on property owners. The western route could affect 111 homeowners (although the company would need right-of-way access from about half that number), and the eastern route could affect up to 177 homeowners with right-of-way access from half that number. He also said many of those properties would have utility poles going up in the front of their properties.

“We have the opportunity to build this and maintain it in the right-of-way with one parcel that’s 100 feet wide for the most part,” said Beach.

And said "opportunity" runs along the back side of residential property.  So, where would you rather have a transmission line on your property, Aurora?  Your backyard or your front yard?  Nothing like stuffing a few strawmen for public execution, is there, FirstEnergy?  How about neither yard?  How about FirstEnergy buries it, or better yet doesn't build it at all?  I did not notice those options on the table.  Of course not, FirstEnergy's game is rigged to allow the company to win (build a transmission line) every time!

Aurora Mayor Ann Womer Benjamin takes on FirstEnergy's lies in this video.  This lovely lady seems knowledgeable, calm, and entrenched to resist.  And there's no more formidable opponent than a determined lady of a certain age, is there, FirstEnergy?  You might as well just give up now and cut your losses.

Unfortunately, you've got to sit through a FirstEnergy crapfest where Bill Beach shoots the strawmen before Womer Benjamin appears, but it's worth waiting for.