Green Bay residents discuss Bay Lake Project

GREEN BAY - Residents from Green Bay's west side gathered Monday night to share concerns about a major transmission line project that could cut through their neighborhoods.

American Transmission Company is evaluating several preliminary routes for its approximately half a billion dollar Bay Lake Project. The goal is to bring more reliable power between Green Bay and Upper Michigan.

“A couple of them are stray voltage, property values, aesthetics, how that's going to be looking for our city,” said Mary Watermolen of Green Bay of her concerns regarding the project.

“We're still in the early stages of planning for the project,” said Jackie Olson with American Transmission Company.

Throughout the process, ATC has held open houses to educate residents about the project.

“We work with the landowners one on one to discuss and address their concerns,” said Olson.

The open houses are different from the meeting Monday night at Southwest High School. Elected officials from the area organized the gathering.

“We just want to bring people together, give them an opportunity to ask questions, identify potential concerns they might have, more importantly just give them resources to either contact ATC or contact us to help be that conduit for communication,” said Brian Danzinger, a Green Bay alderman.

“Any comment that we receive from a member of the public will be involved in our regulatory application,” said Olson.

That application will be submitted either late next year or early 2014. If it’s approved, the project would begin in 2015 to meet in-service dates of late 2016 through 2017.

“I just want to hear more details,” said Watermolen.

For residents like Watermolen, they'll find out next spring if their neighborhood is included in one of two routes to be submitted for state approval.

ATC will hold another round of open houses next spring, when it narrows its proposed routes to two. The open houses will come before the routes are submitted for approval.