With a reported 95% of required landowner easement contracts now in hand, Grain Belt Express (GBE or GBX) has begun statutory eminent domain procedures to acquire the remaining land needed to begin construction of its approved electric transmission line across the state into Missouri.
A notice of appraisers’ hearing and viewing, as an initial provision of the Kansas Eminent Domain Procedure Act, K.S.A. 26-501 et seq., has been filed in Barton County District Court Civil Department and Pawnee County District Court in the case of Grain Belt Express LLC v. Hammond Inc. et al, scheduling a public hearing at 9 a.m. March 7 at the Barton County Courthouse, 1400 Main St, Third Floor in Great Bend with the stipulation that the hearing may thereafter “be continued or adjourned without further notice from day-to-day and from place-to-place” until the matter is concluded with respect to the properties described in the plaintiff’s verified petitions for condemnation.
GBE has previously filed a petition for condemnation and now court appointed appraisers will determine compensation and damages for the affected parties. Viewing by signatory court-appointed appraisers Jason Mayers and Barb Esfeld, Barton County, and Tyson Steffen, Pawnee County, will take place immediately following the hearing.
At issue is approximately 30 acres running through 1000 acres at the Rosewood Ranch located west of Pawnee Rock near the Barton-Pawnee County line. Owner Tammy Hammond has been openly critical of the transmission line project, since before it was included in the Department of Energy’s Midwest Plains National Interest Corridor proposal at the beginning of last year.
“We’ve been fighting this (transmission line) since 2012 or 2013,” Hammond said during a Friday telephone interview. “We’ve been serving people with developmental disabilities for 30 years and this is the best use of our land,” she said.
The NIETC proposal has since been removed from the DOE’s list of proposed projects across the country, but the GBE, previously deemed a public utility allowing it to utilize eminent domain, had received permission to move forward by the Kansas Corporation Commission. Phase 1 of the project, a proposed 580-mile, 5,000MW transmission line stretching across Kansas from Ford County into Missouri, is still moving forward.
The March 7 hearing filing is believed to be the first such GBE proceeding on record in Kansas. A draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) was forwarded to Barton County Administrator Matt Patzner on Jan. 15. Four public comment hearings on the DEIS have been scheduled this month, beginning with a session at 4 p.m. Feb. 10 at the Dodge City Public Library. Two additional virtual sessions have been scheduled for Feb. 19-20.
The subject properties as listed by common address, include: 1. (11 acres) the SE corner of SW 140th Ave. (80th Ave.) and SW 30th Road (1369 SW 30th Road) Pawnee Rock; 2. (1.542 acres) the SE corner of SW 120th Ave. and SW 20th Road, Pawnee Rock; 3. (5.240 acres) the North line of SW 20th Road west of SW 110th Ave. (1130 and 1140 SW 20th Road, Pawnee Rock; and 4.(11.217 acres) the SW corner of 80th Ave. (SW 140th Ave. and X Road, north line of W Road, Pawnee Rock.
Legal descriptions of the properties in question may be found in the Classified section of Saturday’s Great Bend Tribune.
At the hearing, any party may appear in person or by an attorney and may present either oral or written testimony.
The court-appointed appraisers will hear evidence and testimony on all matters pertaining to their appraisal of compensation and the assessment of damages for the taking of the lands or interests sought by GBE.
Attorney for GBE as plaintiff is Seth C. Wright, of the law firm of Polsinelli PC, of Kansas City, Mo.
Attorney for Hammond Inc. is Bradley A. Stout of Adam Jones Law Firm, P.A. of Wichita.
