Duquesne Light Wants More High Power Transmission Lines In North Hills
NORTH HILLS (KDKA) -- Duquesne Light just announced plans for a high voltage electric transmission line through part of the North Hills, but opponents say it cuts through farmlands, dividing properties in half.
An effort is already underway to stop it before it even gets started.
"Duquesne Light has recently proposed a new high transmission line from the Dorseyville Road substation to a substation in West Deer Township," Indiana Township manager Dan Anderson told KDKA money editor Jon Delano on Thursday.
Anderson says his residents will be the most adversely affected.
"All the proposed routes have impacts on our residents."
Duquesne Light has three proposed routes for these high power transmission lines.
Its preferred route runs due north for about five miles to a new substation on Route 910 in West Deer.
Why is it preferred?
The company says it really has no impact on large residential areas, businesses, or the environment.
But critics disagree.
Part of Indiana is zoned as an agricultural area for farms and cannot be subdivided.
Susan Cenname is one of many farmers affected.
"My twelve acres are clean and green, so I can't split them," she says, "but Duquesne Light feels it should be able to."
In fact, a tower would be constructed where her late husband's ashes are buried.
"It's very disturbing," she says. "It's also disturbing because I won't be able to live here anymore. Even though they are only taking a one hundred foot wide swath to put herbicides on and make a wasteland out of, it's right through the middle of the property."
Residents have formed a group called RespectAgZone.org, and they want the power lines to run along the nearby Pennsylvania Turnpike to avoid homes and farms.
In the end, whatever Duquesne Light proposes requires PUC approval.
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