By Richard Ruelas | The Arizona Republic
It was a neighbor who brought the letter over to Mark Jorve’s house south of Willcox, a property that has a tasting room for a living room and a vineyard for a front yard. ♦ The letter was from the federal Bureau of Land Management. It informed property owners of a plan to install electrical towers up to 170 feet high through the area. ♦ The two proposed routes — purple lines on the map — would cut right through the heart of the Willcox grape-growing region, the source of most of the state’s wines. ♦ Jorve figured he didn’t get the letter himself because he didn’t own land adjacent enough to the power lines. But the plan definitely affected him.
Comment by Jordan Rose, founder and president of Rose Law Group, which has been involved in numerous powerline siting cases over the past two decades.
“The battles for powerline placement we have been involved in over the years become really heated usually between business or landowners who don’t want nor need the associated negative impacts. In this case, it seems as if there would be multiple other alternatives that wouldn’t impact private property at all. “That is what needs to be advocated.”
