Posted on 09/20/2007 4:29:27 PM PDT by decimon
BARROW COUNTY, Ga. -- A Barrow County woman says an off-duty deputy handcuffed and had her strip-searched because of a simple dispute over a power line.
“My life has never been the same since. I’m having a very hard time with it,” said Sue Worley.
A farm in Hoschton in Barrow County has been home to 60-year-old Worley all her life.
Late last year, a letter from the Georgia Transmission Corporation told her a 230 Kilovolt power line was going to go through her property. When surveyors showed up, Worley said she went down the road to talk. She said she didn’t threaten anyone, but the Barrow County deputy working with the surveyors didn’t see it that way -- the deputy called for backup.
“I saw two sheriff’s cars drive up,” said Worley. She was handcuffed, arrested and charged with disorderly conduct.
“I was in the car and I went all the way to the jail handcuffed,” she said. Worley was booked into the jail, patted down and strip searched.
“She sprayed me down with lice spray. It was so humiliating,” Worley said. “They made a criminal out of me.”
The charges were dropped, but Worley and her lawyer are suing the Georgia Transmission Company.
“It’s just pure, old-fashioned intimidation. They want people’s land and they don’t want to pay for it,” said Worley's lawyer, Don Evans. “They’re going to set their power poles wherever they want and if anybody gives them any lip, they’ll put you in jail.”
She and her lawyer said they’re suing, not just for her, but for other Georgians facing the threat of eminent domain and what they see as loss of property rights.
“I just don’t see how this could happen in a land of freedom, but we don’t have freedom anymore because people can just do anything they want to,” said Worley.
Project H.O.P.E. -- Homeowners Opposing Power Line Encroachment -- said Worley's case shows the need for the governor and legislature to draw stronger citizen-friendly laws to prevent what it calls, "preferential treatment," for power companies.
A spokesperson for the Georgia Transmission Corporation told Channel 2 they had hired a deputy because they'd had some subtle threats from other residents in the area.
Right now, it looks like the power line will go up either late next year or in early 2009.
As a former police officer, it was made clear to me that we were technically on duty all of the time when it came to matters of law enforcement. If a law was broken we had the duty to intervene within the guidelines of the law. This did not extend to minor traffic infractions. On another note non-LEO citizens can make a citizen's arrest under certain conditions.
That is possible but doesn't seem likely given that the workers there were surveyors.
Wave whatever you feel like.
Thank you for adding some sanity to a thread fast approaching the bozo zone.
It seems to me that all of a sudden we are being bombarded with bad cop stories. Everything in the news is there for a reason - what’s going on or am I just getting paranoid???
While I’m in general agreement with what you’ve written, I wanted to make one clarification:
It is in only a few states where “net metering” laws force the utility to pay retail rate for power from “home power producers.”
A map of metering regs for the US is here:
http://www.dsireusa.org/documents/SummaryMaps/NetMetering_Map.ppt
OK, in many of the states where you see “*”, the regulations require IOU’s (Investor-owned Utilities) to buy at retail rates, or rates higher than “avoided cost” rates.
In many of those states, the rural co-operatives are either exempt from having to buy user-generated power, or they need pay only “avoided cost” rates, and then often only up to a certain amount of kWh per month.
Same deal for solar power.
One more issue to add to your list: safety. The home-spun power system must disconnect from the grid if the grid goes down. Otherwise, linemen’s lives are at risk.
Re property rights. Just wait until they start the Super Highway in Texas. You will find that you have no property rights.
Agree , I'm thinking she was upset and the Deputy moonlighting for the Power Co. didn't like the fact she was actually going to make him work for the money they were paying him and called his buddies.
I used to work at a Car dealership and the owner principle was one of the biggest @ holes you could ever meet but one thing I did learn from him was how to handle irate customers .Let them talk themselves out .The more rabid they are the less they can keep it up and once they've exhausted themselves they become reasonable people again.
If a homeowner is "off the grid" then he does not have service anyway.
"The utility still has to maintain service to that customer even though they are not receiving any substantial income from him."
The utility does not have to provide power if a customer doesn't want it.
"Also any excess power that the customer generates the utility is required to purchase from the customer at a premium. "
Usually homeowners are paid less than wholesale for excess power that they produce.
"Then there is the issue of power quality. These off the grid power producers have a bad reputation with putting low quality power on the grid which can cause havoc with the equipment of other customers. "
If the home is "off the grid" they are not connected so they can not be putting poor quality power on it. Even with grid intertied systems, damage to the utility's equipment is just about impossible since a homeowner's inverter would be fried if the utility and homeowner's inverter sine wave ever got out of phase. If the phase does wander, the homeowner's equipment will disconnect from the grid, it's designed to do that. There is no way a little 5kw or so system could do anything to the "unlimited" capacity of the grid, the grid would win every time.
"The utilities have just cause to oppose independent power producers. The deck is stacked against them."
Just the opposite is true, the deck is stacked against the homeowner. Check these sites for very high quality grid intertied systems plus some good educational information on them: http://www.xantrex.com http://www.outbackpower.com
“what’s going on or am I just getting paranoid???”
You’re just getting paranoid. Everyone has noticed it and is talking about you. :)
Utility workers once picked my legally parked car up (with a forklift, I imagine) and deposited it next to a fire hydrant so they could dig a hole.
After they were done, they left my car next to the hydrant.
Along comes a cop, and I get a ticket.
A neighbor witnessed it, and told me what happened.
I just paid the ticket and—for that and other annoyances from living in a city—resolved to move away, which I did two years later.
Only a few?
The map you linked to say 42 of 50 states have net metering. Though many have limits, I would say that is a majority.
I would get that at times as a repairer of office equipment. Someone would pop a cork and climb all over me for no reason other than that I was there. As you indicated, just take it and they will usually apologize later.
In NYC I once came home to find my car across the street from where I’d parked it. The road had been dug up and patched where my car had been.
I live in a rural area upstate. They just put up HUGE power poles. Bigger than the ones in post 6..................for NY city. It's not for us. So they put poles in peoples yards for someone else. They ruined some properties and farms. That's ok with you?
Is that what it is. TNX. Thought it was just “the voices” coming back. I have Hillarycare you know and my plan only pays for aspirian and even though the nurses’ asst sect who wrote the script says I’ll be fine, they don’t always work very well!
You’re right — that was a slip on my part as a result of editing down a larger comment on the insane subsidies through the tax system in a few states for these home power projects.
Funny (and true) story: The governor’s alternative energy task force came out here to the boonies to pitch Nevada’s new “renewables quota” on power generation — something like 14% of all power in the IOU’s is supposed to be from ‘renewable’ resources.
OK, we go through the de rigeur .PPT presentation(s) on how well these alternative projects have worked in other states.
Finally a very nice lady from the DOE’s Renewables group in CO whips up a slide showing the payback graphs for:
- no compensation other than avoided cost(s)
- net metering at two different rates
- net metering plus tax breaks
Best case was the last one, of course.
Our co-op president was in the room and he explained the “avoided cost” compensation model/regulation(s) - which even tho we’re paying about $0.09/kWh here, the avoided cost is about $0.025/kWh.
Then I spoke up. I pointed out that there were only a very few states (like four) where you had net metering *and* tax breaks - and all of these states were what Nevadans would consider “high tax” states — CA and ID were two right next to us being used as examples throughout the day.
I pointed to how much of the payback period reduction on putting up a windmill in a viable wind power area was due to the tax breaks in CA and ID. Then I noted rather sternly to everyone from Carson City who was in the room that we here in Nevada have no personal (or business) income tax with which to give breaks, and that we sure as heck were not about to allow the legislature to enact such a tax merely for the purpose of giving out exemptions from said tax.
This pretty much was the end of the alternative power generated by us farmers and ranchers in the boonies, outside the area of IOU’s in Nevada.
The payback period for a windmill with our scenario (avoided costs only) was something like 45 years.
The payback period in CA/ID with net metering *and* tax breaks was about 12 years. Huge difference. There were only a very few states out of the 50 where these two issued converged — like four, I think: CA, ID, MN and IA.
That’s where the ‘few’ came from, and I slipped up on the edit. Sorry ‘bout that.
LOL, I’m sure that’s true in a lot of places. Luckily, one thing California got right was Prop 13.
That is a long time. I guess it would be a legacy to your kids.
On different note what is the expected useful life of a windmill? In other words could you really have an expectation that it would ever pay for itself?
That should be the only real criteria for purchasing these things. One tax payer should not buying another a windmill.
while I agree that limited eminent domain has a purpose, I wonder how these people are surviving without electricity till the lines are run???
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