Eminent domain - here comes the power line

Visalia Times-Delta
Visalia, California
July 8, 2008

Subject: Power line location – not whether but where

When the power company says, “Move over, I’m coming through”, and farmers cede their shovels and pitchforks to civil methods of resolving the conflict between their right of land ownership and the sovereignty of the state, they should be thankful.

They should be thankful this place is not dominated by the federal government, for example, such as an 80,000 square-mile federal territory overlaying parts of seven southern states. That huge territory is controlled by the Tennessee Valley Authority by an act of Congress in 1933.

The TVA has the right of eminent domain, specifically meaning that the government has the right under specific circumstances, to take your property. In TVA’s case, they have exercised that right many times, displacing thousands of families to build reservoirs for power plants. The TVA is an unwise federal agency, has made many, many mistakes, and presently is in debt for $25 billion. Some argue that debt also belongs to you and me.

In California, investor-owned utility companies through State legislative authorization also have been conferred the right of eminent domain for public uses.

The conflict here, fortunately, has a state agency, the Public Utilities Commission, to guard against the unwise use of eminent domain and requires a full airing of both sides of the issues through public hearings.

No such venue is available to the some 8 million people in TVA territory. TVA is the federal government and the federal government exercises the right of eminent domain. (V Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, “[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation]”). There are no public service commissions to protect the interests of citizens behind TVA’s 2,500 mile-long fence in seven Southeastern states.

Ernest Norsworthy
emnorsworthy@earthlink.net