Feb 7 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Adam Thompson Athens Banner-Herald, Ga.

The latest proposal for a new high-power electricity line in Oconee County still radiates controversy for Georgia Transmission Corp. and the residents who don't want the line looming in their backyards.

After bowing in December to pressure from conservationists who didn't like Georgia Transmission's first plan, the utility construction company now is moving forward with a new route nearby.

But the new path skirts a yet-undeveloped part of the large, upscale Lane Creek Plantation in western Oconee County.

That move has angered longtime developer Mike Power and Lane Creek residents, who are fighting the one-mile section of the nine-mile, $9 million project.

Georgia Transmission, which builds infrastructure for the state's electric membership corporations, needs a 100-foot, clear-cut easement for the line and would have to erect a series of 80-foot concrete poles to hold it up.

The line would ruin property values in the golf course community and scare away new homeowners, Lane Creek residents argue.

Residents feel lied to, said Marylou Giordano, co-chairwoman of the community's homeowners association.

On Tuesday, the association's officers met with company officials and came away believing the route isn't set in stone, Giordano said -- only to find out later that the company plans to begin required public meetings to make the route official.

Now, neighbors feel, the route is a done deal, Giordano said.

"In the meeting, there was no mention that this is official," she said.

But Georgia Transmission representatives told homeowners that the route along Lane Creek is in fact what the company wants, said company spokeswoman Jeannine Rispin.

"We went in there and I think we were real clear that the route we intend to take to the public meeting was the route that went along the subdivision," Rispin said. "That is the preferred corridor."

Georgia Transmission Corp., which builds infrastructure for the state's electric membership corporations, is constructing a nine-mile line through Oconee County as part of a huge Northeast Georgia project the company calls the largest upgrade to the state's power grid in 30 years.

Transmission company officials still may change their minds, as they did in December.

The company's first official proposal for the line called for a route along Snows Mill Road, which would have cut through a conservation easement maintained on a local farm.

After pressure from land trusts and farm preservationists, the company relented.

Even before pitching the Snows Mill route to the public last year, Georgia Transmission eyed Power's land, but after he raised concerns they assured him it wouldn't happen, he said.

Power admits he doesn't have much say if the company wants the line there; like public utility companies, Georgia Transmission has the right to condemn property to install its lines.

But the company has a low condemnation rate, and officials want to keep it that way, Rispin said.

In an attempt to make a deal with Power, the company has offered to buy additional parcels in Lane Creek's undeveloped fifth phase, increasing the green space that would screen the line from view.

Residents aren't so sure that would be enough, however, said Giordano.

Any time the company takes on a large project, there's always at least one difficult section, Rispin said.

"This is the difficult one," she said of the Oconee section.

Company officials want to have negotiations worked out with Power by the time they hold public meetings on the route -- likely a couple of months from now, Rispin said.