Concerns expressed over cross-state high voltage transmission line

More than 100 landowners, elected officials and Entergy representatives packed the Jena Community Center in Jena, LA, Thursday night, Oct. 1, for a public forum on Entergy’s proposed West Fork Creek to St. Landry high voltage transmission line, a project that has drawn statewide attention since information about the line went public in early September.

The forum, hosted by the Louisiana Landowners Coalition and moderated by 28th Judicial District Attorney J. Reed Walters, gave affected property owners from along the line’s entire route, stretching from St. Landry Parish to Richland Parish, the chance to directly question a panel that included Larry Hand, Entergy’s vice president of regulatory affairs; District 4 Public Service Commissioner Mike Francis; Jackson Voss, government affairs advisor for the Alliance for Affordable Energy; state Sen. Glen Womack; and several state representatives, including Mike Johnson, Neil Riser and Rhonda Butler.

Walters set clear ground rules at the outset, asking attendees to keep questions and answers civil and brief.

“We’re here to ask questions. We’re here to get answers, but we’re not here to cause a problem,” Walters said. There were no issues of disruption during the entire hour and a half event.

QUESTIONS OVER PUBLIC PURPOSE AND SECRECY

Much of the evening centered on whether the 500kV line, which would stretch from Richland Parish to St. Landry Parish to help power a new Meta data center near Rayville, truly qualifies as a public necessity under Louisiana law, or primarily serves a single private customer.

Aubrey McAnn of LaSalle Parish opened the questioning by asking why Entergy would consider using eminent domain if its own filings describe the project as serving the data center rather than a broader public need.

Hand said the line is driven by more than one customer, pointing to growing industrial and data center loads statewide and the need for added reliability during spring and fall maintenance seasons, when utilities take generators and lines offline.

“There becomes a reliability risk, particularly in the spring and the fall seasons,” Hand said, adding that the project would also give central Louisiana its first 500kV transmission line.

Coalition spokesperson Dustin McAnn, who organized the event, said he became involved after discovering a survey stake near his barn with no prior notice from Entergy.

“Fifty-eight days ago, I was just a teacher and a rancher,” McAnn said. “I was happy on my farm until I woke up and saw a survey stake in the median in front of my barn and no phone call from Doyle Land Services and no phone call from Entergy.”

McAnn pressed the panel on the secrecy surrounding the project, including non-disclosure agreements signed by public officials.

“If this deal is so good, why is it such a secret?” McAnn asked. “Why are NDAs and why are redactions in public record? And I can’t have due process as a landowner?”

Hand defended the regulatory process, saying confidential testimony is shared with parties who sign confidentiality agreements and that the Louisiana Public Service Commission will weigh all evidence, including sealed material, before a scheduled December vote.

Voss, with the Alliance for Affordable Energy, said the public still deserves more transparency.

“A lot of things are being presented to people… but we’re not going to tell you all the details until much later,” Voss said mockingly.

Gary Musgrove of Rapides Parish pressed Francis on whether any committed electrical load beyond Meta justified the project. Francis said the commission could not speculate until Entergy finalizes its plans.

“Until all these facts are discovered and laid before us, we cannot speculate,” Francis said.

LANDOWNERS DESCRIBE PERSONAL TOLL, CALL FOR REROUTING

Several landowners described direct, personal impacts the project would have on land many have owned for generations.

Jimmy Nugent of LaSalle Parish said the proposed route would cut directly through the middle of a 160-acre tract of hardwood timber that has been in his family for generations, despite existing utility corridors nearby that could offer an alternative path.

“We’re in it, and it’s really hard to put a value on that,” Nugent said. “I don’t think Entergy would want to pay what I would consider that to be worth.”

Nugent asked why Entergy appeared locked into the current route rather than paralleling existing rights of way or pipelines that already run across the state, rather than cutting fresh paths through family timberland.

Jerry Cruse, also of LaSalle Parish, said his family’s 192-acre timber tract, which has been in the family more than 100 years, already carries a 150-foot pipeline easement approved by his father decades ago. He said a new 250-foot right of way would compound that loss significantly.

“That just doesn’t seem quite fair to the landowner and for what we use the land for (timber production),” Cruse said, asking the panel to seriously consider an alternate route he had identified on a published map that appeared to divert around his property just north of his land.

Danielle LeBouef of Rapides Parish, a teacher and 4-H leader, said she and her husband moved to the country specifically to raise their children away from danger, only to learn Entergy wants to run the line through her front yard.

“Less than a year later, Entergy is knocking on my door to take our property,” LeBouef said. “I feel powerless, which is ironic because you’re the power company.”

LeBouef also pressed Hand on noise concerns, telling him that Entergy’s own website described audible noise from the 500kV lines as something that occurs only in humid conditions, a description she said doesn’t reflect reality in Louisiana, where her property sits near a levee that produces fog almost daily.

Hand admitted he had read the same information on the company’s website and had the same question himself, acknowledging he did not have further technical details on expected noise levels and had no one else on the panel who could answer more specifically.

“I don’t think we should just dismiss that as, oh well, that’s only an occasional thing, because it’s not occasional. It’s a daily thing for us,” LeBouef said.

Julie Wilkerson, tribal attorney for the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians, told the panel the tribe has roughly 350 acres in LaSalle Parish that could be affected, and requested formal government-to-government consultation given the tribe’s sovereign status.

Renee Jackson of LaSalle Parish told the panel she grew up on property beneath an existing Entergy power line and said the company’s vegetation spraying devastated her family’s ability to sustain themselves.

“Spraying got gardens. Spraying got chickens. It got ducks. It got turkeys. It killed crops. We had some really thin winters over Entergy spraying,” Jackson said, adding that when her family raised concerns at the time, they were told they would need a lawyer, money they did not have while depending on their garden to feed their family. She asked whether Entergy would be a better partner to landowners, farmers and timbermen going forward.

Jackson also held up Native American pottery and pottery shards as she spoke, noting that gathering natural materials such as clay or palmetto from areas like Catahoula Lake without permission can result in criminal charges, while utility companies are permitted to build infrastructure that kills wildlife by the thousands.

Several landowners described discovering survey stakes on their property with no advance warning from Entergy, a pattern Hand acknowledged was a poor way to begin the process. Hand admitted the company had gotten off to a rough start by staking land before securing permission or contacting owners directly.

“Acknowledging we got off to a rough start if we were staking people’s property without having permission, that’s not the way to do business,” Hand said. He said Entergy has since worked to catch up, actively engaging landowners to obtain survey permission, and reported the company currently has survey permission on about 70% of the roughly 450 tracts along the route, with a goal of reaching 100%.

Hand also said the public response to the project in recent weeks pushed the company to begin developing new tools for transparency. He said Entergy is working to finalize a public website featuring an interactive map that would allow landowners to click on their parcel to see whether it is affected, along with a dedicated contact number connecting landowners to an actual Entergy employee rather than only a right-of-way agent.

RATE IMPACTS, ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS RAISED

Several residents pressed Hand on whether the project would raise electric bills. Hand said Entergy structured the agreement so Meta pays a minimum monthly bill regardless of usage, and he projected customers would see a net benefit of $4.6 billion over 20 years.

“We believe utility bills across Louisiana will be lower because of the contributions Meta will make to the system cost,” Hand said.

Environmental concerns also surfaced prominently during the forum. Donald Clair of Rapides Parish, a former secretary of the Game and Fish Preserve for Catahoula Lake, raised alarm about the line’s proximity to the lake, a designated Ramsar wetland of international importance for migratory waterfowl since 1991.

Clair cited cypress trees in the area cored and dated at more than 2,000 years old and pointed to the broader toll power lines take on bird populations nationwide.

“According to statistics, there are millions, up to somewhere 64 million birds that are killed every year by these power lines,” Clair said. “What is this going to do to our mighty poor birds out there on Catahoula Lake? We’re going to have dead birds all over the place.”

Clair urged Entergy to consider shifting the route a few miles west to avoid the lakebed entirely, citing eagles and other wildlife in the area as further reason for caution.

Lee Patterson of East Baton Rouge Parish questioned why Louisiana residents should sacrifice quality of life for corporate profit, drawing loud applause from the crowd.

“Why is our quality of life being sacrificed to subsidize these billionaires who are just sucking up every last resource we have?” Patterson asked.

COMMISSIONER’S ROLE QUESTIONED

One of the evening’s most pointed exchanges came from Bruce Richardson of Rapides Parish, who asked Francis directly whether his role was to promote economic development or protect ratepayers, drawing a loud round of applause.

Francis defended his position, saying growth requires reliable power.

“My job is to help provide safe, reliable, affordable electricity,” Francis said. “In order to keep these things going… we have got to provide more electricity than we have now, or these developments will not happen.”

BARBO PRESSES HAND ON TRANSPARENCY AND FUTURE COSTS

One of the evening’s sharpest exchanges came from Steve Barbo of LaSalle Parish, who directed a series of pointed questions at Hand. Barbo first asked whether Entergy had ever built a transmission line of this size for any other private company. Hand pushed back on the framing of the question, maintaining the line serves more than one customer, before confirming the company has previously built large lines to serve high-voltage industrial customers, including a 500kV line from a substation known as Commodore to Churchill, south of Baton Rouge toward New Orleans.

Barbo then asked whether Hand personally wrote the motion presented to the Public Service Commission for the West Fork Creek to St. Landry project, referencing a Gulf States Newsroom report alleging Entergy had ghostwritten motions for commissioners regarding data center projects tied to Meta and Honda. Hand confirmed he had seen the report and explained that, as part of a prior settlement, he had drafted a motion at the request of former Commissioner Foster Campbell, which was then submitted through the Public Service Commission’s counsel for Campbell’s consideration.

“But you sent the motion. That’s what you did, right?” Barbo asked.

“For a settlement, yes,” Hand said. Barbo also questioned whether rising demand for natural gas to power data centers nationwide would eventually drive up fuel costs for Entergy customers, despite Hand’s earlier assurances that electric bills would not rise because of the project. Hand said the new generating units Entergy plans to bring online are significantly more efficient than the current market average, which he said would offset fuel cost increases even if natural gas prices climb. Barbo strongly disagreed with Hand’s projections.

Barbo closed by pressing Hand on why Entergy had not yet released a clear, public map identifying every landowner along the proposed route, arguing it would eliminate confusion and speculation. Hand responded that a map had already been published in The Jena Times. Barbo contended the maps published were not very clear and individual tracks were not recognizable and questioned why Entergy did not release specific maps from the beginning.

As the forum closed, McAnn thanked attendees and panelists alike, acknowledging the emotional weight of the issue for many in the room.

“This isn’t just business,” McAnn said. “This is people’s homes, their homes, everything they worked for.”

McAnn said Entergy representatives remained afterward to meet individually with landowners, and he encouraged those with unresolved questions to continue reaching out to the coalition as the Public Service Commission’s scheduled December vote approaches.

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