HOUSTON – Clean Line Energy Partners is hosting two weeks of public open house meetings in Kansas inviting community members and landowners to learn about the Grain Belt Express Clean Line transmission project. During these meetings, Clean Line staff members will discuss potential routing options for the high voltage direct current electric transmission line project and provide the public an opportunity to provide feedback.
Clean Line believes that public involvement is a crucial component of the transmission line development process,” said Sarah Bray, Clean Line spokesperson. It has identified a network of potential routes based on extensive feedback from community leaders, landowners, government agencies, conservation and non-governmental organizations, as well as environmental and engineering data collected during more than two years.
The public open house meetings will be held in communities near the network of potential routes in order to provide an opportunity for landowners and community leaders to learn about the project firsthand, ask questions and provide input. Clean Line representatives will also be available for interviews with the local media.
The Grain Belt Express Clean Line is a 700-mile overhead, high voltage direct current transmission line that will deliver 3,500 megawatts of wind power from Kansas to Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and states farther east. “Kansas has superb wind energy resources, but wind farm development is limited due to a lack of transmission,” Bray said.
The Grain Belt Express Line will give Kansas the ability to move a domestic energy source to market and enable $7 billion of new, renewable energy projects to be built in Kansas. In addition to the new wind farm investments, the Grain Belt Express Clean Line project will cost approximately $2 billion with around $1 billion of investment in Kansas. In December 2011, the Kansas Corporation Commission unanimously approved Grain Belt Express Clean Line LLC as a public utility in Kansas.
“The Grain Belt Express Clean Line will provide broad economic growth throughout the state of Kansas,” Bray said. “The project will create the opportunity for thousands of jobs in Kansas to construct and operate the wind farms and transmission line and allow for tens of millions of upfront sales tax and millions in annual property taxes on the transmission line in Kansas.”
Upcoming area meetings include:
Great Bend
7- 9 a.m. (9 a.m. – Availability for media interviews) Tuesday, Jan. 29, at the Elks Lodge, 1120 Kansas Ave.
 Larned
 5-7 p.m. (4 p.m. – Availability for media interviews) Tuesday, Jan. 29, at the Haas Building, 400 E. 18th St.
 Russell
7- 9 a.m. (9 a.m. – Availability for media interviews) Wednesday, Jan. 29, at the Elks Lodge, 510 South Front St.
For more information on the Grain Belt Express Clean Line project, visit www.grainbeltexpresscleanline.com.