( KNZA )--Clean Line Energy Partners has selected it’s preferred route for the Grain Belt Express high voltage electric transmission line that's to be constructed through several area northeast Kansas counties.

 The Houston, Texas-based company is to file an application today (Monday ) with the Kansas Corporation Commission for permission to site the new transmission line beginning near the Spearville 345-kilovolt substation in southwest Kansas, and running north and east to the Kansas-Missouri border.

The company selected the proposed route from among three potential routes it had been considering and following public hearings earlier this year. The route crosses through Marshall, Nemaha, Brown and Doniphan Counties, south of U.S. 36 Highway.

The 700-mile Grain Belt Express transmission line would deliver 35-hundred megawatts of wind power from southwestern Kansas to urban areas in the eastern United States.

A group of area farmers claim the power lines threaten their business, and have organized a petition drive. The petition asks the KCC to deny the route, stating it’s a “ serious abuse of state power to use eminent domain to take land to build a for-profit private transmission line that will mutilate the landscape and farmground without providing any electricity to local communities.”

The KCC has scheduled four public hearings on the application.  One of those will be held August 12th at 6 in the evening at the Nemaha County Community building in Seneca.  The others will take place in Beloit, Russell and Kinsley.

 The KCC may approve the route as proposed, approve the route subject to modification, or deny the request.


To view the proposed route of the transmission line, go here.