BOARDMAN — A planned transmission line Umatilla Electric Cooperative hopes to build in Boardman is meeting resistance from some property owners, who don’t want to be forced to allow an easement through their property.

The 230-volt line would stretch over about 4 miles, from a planned switchyard near Highway 730 to a planned substation on Olson Road near a future Amazon data center.

Fletcher Hobbs, owner of Custom Feed Services, has been one of the vocal opponents of the line’s planned path, which would cross property where he recently built a new building for his feed business and leases land to Small Truck Company. He said a transmission line will devalue his property, and interfere with his plans for the property after he recently moved his business from Irrigon to Boardman.

“I told (UEC) I didn’t want power lines anywhere near me and they could find somewhere else, because I didn’t have room for another easement on my property with what I was doing with it,” he said.

Hobbs said he worked with Morrow County’s planning department to come up with a plan to overlap UEC’s desired easement to an easement for a loop road that will be built along his property. If UEC’s route looked like that, he might have ended up consenting to an easement rather than go to court, he said, but when that wasn’t the agreement he was presented, he said he wouldn’t sign it.

Hobbs said the Constitution protects citizens from having property seized for projects that are not for the general public good, and he feels that eminent domain would be unconstitutional in this case.

“Getting power to a mysterious owner of concrete bunkers is not public use,” he said. “You simply cannot take land for the use of another person or private entity.”

Robert Echenrode, general manager of Umatilla Electric Cooperative, said the cooperative is trying to balance the needs of new members, existing members and the community of Boardman as a whole. He said they welcome public input as they try to find compromises.

“Sometimes the needs of the new members and the old members don’t align,” he said.

UEC doesn’t identify customers by name, but Echenrode said the total project was in response to “growth that cannot be accommodated by the infrastructure we have in place.” He said while it does benefit a specific customer, it also provides a “jumping off point” to serve continued growth in the Boardman area. He used the example of UEC building the Hermiston East Substation in 2017, which was then ready to serve a new water tower, new subdivisions currently under construction and a planned new school in that part of Hermiston.

“We don’t want to be behind,” he said.

He said the cooperative is limited by a list of factors as they design a route for a transmission line. They must avoid features, such as buildings, wetlands, irrigation canals, natural gas lines, railroads and highways, plus try to avoid harming businesses or taking high-value crop circles out of production. They are also constrained by the geography of the landscape, the budget for the project, engineering factors, such as limits on how far a line can stretch between poles, and the strict rules Bonneville Power Administration has about where lines can cross.

Working around all of those factors, he said, produced three options, and UEC chose what they felt was the best of the three.

Echenrode said there are 17 parcels of land along the proposed route, with 11 distinct landowners. Records that UEC submitted to the Oregon Public Utility Commission show four landowners have not yet signed easements.

Umatilla Electric Cooperative is seeking a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity from Oregon Public Utility Commission showing that the project is needed. The cooperative needs the certificate to move forward, including possible next steps to seek court approval to use eminent domain to require property owners to sign over an easement in exchange for fair market value compensation.

Echenrode said using eminent domain is a very rare step for the cooperative, and one it would only take as a last resort.

Morrow County Commissioner Jim Doherty is one area resident who is supporting the last holdouts for easements. He said he wasn’t opposed to economic development, or to Amazon building more data centers in the county. But he would like to see UEC use a different route for its transmission line, avoiding residential and commercial land and using industrial land north of Interstate 84 instead.

He said many of UEC’s members are salt of the earth, “mirror images” of the people whose property is at stake, and it would leave a bad taste in the community’s mouth toward UEC and future Amazon projects if the cooperative uses eminent domain.

“I’ve got to believe at the end of the day these folks will find another way,” he said.

Wendy Yates is one of the property owners who doesn’t want to give UEC an easement. She is in the process of purchasing 11 acres from her parents that include mini storage buildings, an RV storage area, a manufactured home, warehouse and an office, which she lives above.

“These would be huge, high-voltage lines going next to my house,” she said. “It would be very detrimental to my property and I don’t want to sleep right next to a huge, high voltage power line.”

Gary Frederickson is not one of the property owners being asked for an easement, but said he does own more than 70 acres, across the road. He and his wife live on one property, and other family members live on two of the other properties, which also include irrigated pastures.

He said he has met with Umatilla Electric Cooperative representatives and its engineers from Toth Engineering and told them he didn’t want the “huge, high lines” devaluing his property. He said he felt that there hadn’t been enough planning before ground was broken on a new data center.

“It’s been a flawed process,” he said. “Normally, these lines are pretty well thought out, but this hasn’t been.”

The Public Utility Commission is accepting public comment on the matter through a phone meeting. Those who wish to testify can call 866-390-1828 and use access code 2252866# at 6 p.m. until there are no more callers on the line. Written testimony can also be submitted by email to puc.publiccomments@state.or.us.