Special Report

Is the utility part of the biosecurity plan?

Powering rural communities often brings transmission and electrical lines through farm fields.

Real Estate Manager David Hollenberger with the American Transmission Company (ATC) tells Brownfield their ag specialists have been working with farmers to create relationships as they expand and maintain transmission line routes.  “A lot of the things we find out now with this talking to farmers, if it’s a large dairy farm or any livestock operation, they may have a biosecurity plan.”  He says, “We want to find out early about that so that if we’re doing surveying or we’re doing construction, or we’re having crews out on their property—we’ll follow their biosecurity plan.”  Hollenberger says farms may also want to consider transmission lines when planning for expansions and irrigation pivots.

He says after construction or maintenance, ATC pays farmers for any damages to crops or property, including compaction.  “ATC will pay them crop damage not only for the year we do the activity, or the construction activity, but we’ll also pay additional years because we’re assuming with that compaction there’s going to be lost yield over the next two to three years.”

The transmission-only utility covers parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois.

AUDIO: Interview with David Hollenberger