Power lines and structures in eastern Kentucky were the focus of a town hall meeting in Prestonsburg this week. Kentucky Power is working on a project to replace lines and wooden poles that were installed nearly one hundred years ago. The utility met with landowners in the area to discuss the project and find out more information about the land they might be working on.
Cindy Wiseman is a spokesperson for Kentucky Power. She said the region’s terrain can make things difficult.
“One of the things we also want to do is move these structures off the sides of the hill or areas that are hard to reach, often in major outage events like ice storms and other events we’ve had in the past, crews have to climb mountains, or we’ve had to take poles in by helicopter.”
Wiseman said this town hall meeting was only one of the first steps in the process.
“This is the first phase of siting and working with landowners and then once we think we have a pretty good route and people are on board and we’ve satisfied everything, then we have to file that with the Public Service Commission in Kentucky and get approval and that can take some time.”
Wiseman said they plan to file with the PSC in 2023. If the project is approved construction of the new structures is expected to be completed by 2025. Landowners have until December 5th to provide public comment.
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