BROKEN BOW – A pair of public meetings will be held this week regarding Nebraska Public Power District’s proposed R-Project.
The meetings will be held Tuesday, Feb. 27 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Prairie Arts Center in North Platte and Thursday, Feb. 29 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Mid-Plains Community College Broken Bow campus. A virtual meeting has been scheduled for Thursday, March 7.
The meetings, hosted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, will focus on a revised Habitat Conservation Plan and Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.
The R-Project would involve the construction of a new transmission line from the Gerald Gentleman Station near Sutherland north to the existing substation east of Thedford then east to a substation in Holt County.
NPPD says the project will improve reliability and performance of its electric system and provide for the potential development of new renewable energy projects. Many who live in the area are staunchly opposed because of concerns about environmental damage to the Sandhills and opposition to wind farms being built in the region.
Among those opposed is State Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon, who wrote in his weekly update on Friday that “ruining the most beautiful part of Nebraska so a handful of get-rich-quick investors can make money covering the Sandhills in wind turbines is wrong for Nebraska.”
In 2019, a lawsuit succeeded in delaying the project and leading to the development of the new Habitat Conservation Plan. Brewer noted that the wealthy landowners who could afford lawyers to fight the project have since moved out of the state.
Brewer said he delivered a letter Thursday to NPPD CEO Tom Kent expressing concerns about the time and location of the public meetings. Brewer says that holding the meetings in towns that are not on the route in the middle of the work week is a deliberate attempt to discourage the public from participating.
More information on the public meetings can be found here.
