Community fight against substation reaches PSC
by Andy Phelan
andy@dekalbchamp.com
The Public Service Commission will vote June 7 on whether it has the authority to tell Georgia Power where it can build its electric substations.
The issue, which is before the commission for the first time, became a hot topic after members of the Ashford Alliance Community Association and West Nancy Creek Civic Association in north DeKalb chose to fight the state’s largest utility on the choice of its newest substation site – the entrance to their community.
Construction on the four-acre site, which sits on land zoned for residential property a mile south of Perimeter Mall off Ashford-Dunwoody Road, began last week.
The question some residents want answered is who regulates Georgia Power when it comes to its selection of substation sites?
So far, the answer appears to be no one.
“In all the years I’ve been here, this issue has never come up,” said PSC commissioner Bobby Baker, who has been on the board since 1993. “Our in-house attorneys are looking very closely at it.”
Chris Giovinazzo, an attorney representing the Alliance, told the PSC it does have the power to regulate where substations are built.
“There is no other situation in the law where a private entity has such broad decision-making power without any avenue for recourse,” Giovinazzo said. “This body has that power.”
Attorney Kevin Greene, who represents Georgia Power, disagreed.
First, he said, this is land owned by Georgia Power, “and no one has the right to tell the company whether or not to build on its own property.” Plus, he told the commission, the company has the right of eminent domain.
“You have no jurisdiction on this,” said Greene, who indicated that Georgia Power has the same power as railroad companies. “There is no basis in law that gives the PSC that authority. There is no evidence that substations do any harm to residents.”
But for some who live at the doorstep of the future substation, it has already wreaked havoc with their neighborhood.
“It’s a ghost town these days,” said Charlotte James, 41, stepping outside her home on Dunwoody Lane just across the street from the substation site.
Except for the dull hum of construction truck engines and the whine of trees being run through industrial wood chippers, all is quiet. “They destroyed our neighborhood,” James said.
James said she, her husband and three children would like to get out of the neighborhood, “but no one would buy the house with this going on.”
Homes that once held families with children now sit vacant, purchased by the power company to mitigate any problems during construction. More than five families have moved away from Dunwoody Lane even before construction began. Several homes near the proposed substation are for sale.
For Dave Morgan, who lives two blocks from the proposed site, it just doesn’t make sense. He said he’s concerned about property values, possible health risks and the how the substation will look in his neighborhood.
“Georgia Power purchased one acre of land zoned residential and are putting an industrial facility there,” said Morgan, a representative of the Ashford Alliance. “Then they bought three more homes that border the site to squelch community opposition.”
Morgan said the irony is that the man who owned the property where the substation is being built tried to divide the one-acre lot and build four homes on it, but the county denied his request.
“We couldn’t even have a Starbucks on that site, and we’re getting an electric substation instead?” said Morgan. “At the end of the day, we have no power over this.”
Georgia Power spokeswoman Konswello Monroe said the station is going in here because of growth in the community.
“We’ve had to pull power from other substations to serve that area,” she said. “It’s a trend we’ve been watching for a while. Bigger and bigger homes, mini-mansions, are being built there, and they use more and more energy.
Monroe said Georgia Power “have been a good corporate citizens” as evidence by the fact that they are building the station “18 feet below grade and putting a decorative stone wall around the property.”
Greene also told commissioners the station is needed in this north DeKalb enclave because without it hospitals in the area will be in jeopardy. “This substation will provide power to critical areas,” he said.
Many residents say they don’t buy that argument. They are so upset they’ve created a Web site www.nosubstation.org. The centerpiece of the site has video of a substation burning then exploding.
Community activist Jeff Turnage, who has fought the site for almost two years, said he would not give up.
“It’s foolish from our point of view to put this in a residential neighborhood,” he said. “But this is just the beginning.”
State Rep. Mike Jacobs, who represents the Ashford and Nancy Creek communities, said because the PSC is given its powers by the General Assembly that the issue is “in the legislature’s lap.”
“We should do something,” said Jacobs, who supports the residents’ fight. “I think it should be a local zoning decision. After all, they’re the ones who deal with how property is used. But it will take amending the state constitution, and that could prove very difficult.”
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