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One of may partners represented someone in a situation such as yours. Even though the Feds were legally right on the issue of Eminent Domain, there were much better ways to accomplish the same thing, and the local Feds had been very abusive.

ANY taking of land under Eminent Domain requires reasonable compensation for the same. In this case it was fraudulent and a written contract was broken. BTW I never disputed the need for their power line and actually the terms were in good faith on our part negotiated without any legal hearings. IOW the agency came to us, made a offer we considered reasonable, and we did it according to written terms.

It went sour when they changed plans on their tower configurations and decided to just try and ram it through in hopes landowners were stupid or too scared of TVA to try and stop it. I was the only one at first to say Oh No You Aren't. The Camcorder was legal. It was on my property {not their R.O.W.} and I was using it to record all my statements with camera running with a time stamp so they could not say I made any harmful threats.

TVA has a long standing history of abuses some even condoned by the later Senator Howard Baker and the late Congressman John Duncan Sr. where land was taken for Tellico Lake well above and beyond full pool and flood stage to sell to developers for multimillion dollar lots. The first test of the Endangered Species was not as such about the welfare of the Snail Darter in the Little Tennessee River rather it was about a region where citizens were using it to sue TVA to bring some accountability for long standing abuses. The lake even by TVA's own admission was not needed, was not ever going to generate enough power to justify cost, and they could not justify it. Someone higher up had political connections and wanted a lake and lake front property for gated communities.

My concerns with the powerline on my place proved correct. While I did save my home because I stood my ground then and there, the major once in 100 year flood TVA caused did not get it the next spring. How did TVA cause it? By poor reclaiming policies they used cutting a R.O.W. on a steep ridge about a mile long and 500ft wide. I've lived where I'm at basically over 55 years. Some of my neighbors were in their 90's. They never witnessed mud boiling up out of the springs like that powerline had caused. It likely cost two persons downstream their life. We'd all seen much harder rains for a longer time but this flood was different. No previous storms much more severe and longer in intensity had done this before.

TVA had failed to properly reclaim my land after their clear cut and ensure the new cover foliage needed to prevent this had taken root. They failed even after that flood as well. The flooding was about 100ft in elevation below the powerline.

I went to their Inspector Generals Office and showed them pictures. This was after their Right of Way Crew said it wasn't their problem nor responsibility. Two days later it was replanted in game cover by TVA. They suddenly located the liquid seed trucks they said they didn't have.