LIVINGSTON — A public hearing at the Livingston Parish Planning & Zoning Commission meeting discussed the preliminary site plan for a DEMCO substation on 4-H Club Road near Harris Road in Denham Springs.
The hearing, that was held on March 6, was informational in nature, and the board did not take any votes on the substation.
Matt Gibson, the director of engineering with DEMCO, spoke on the proposed substation and answered questions from the public.
Every couple of years, the engineering team conducts a “work plan” that looks at the growth of the area and how it affects the load on the system. Gibson said the purpose of the 4-H Club Road substation is to support the continued growth in that part of the area.
“What our models have shown is, by the time this substation would be complete, if we don’t put the substation there, the power quality is going to suffer. And what I mean by power quality is the voltage,” Gibson explained.
He said that the voltage for homes is about 120 volts, and DEMCO must sustain that within + or – 5 percent. As new homes and businesses come into the area — and as homes switch from gas to electric — the overall load continues to rise.
In addition, in periods of extreme cold or heat, the voltage drops. Over time, this prevents compressors from being able to start, he said.
Adding a substation in those areas helps support this growth, Gibson said.
Within a year or two, load forecast projections are showing that the load will be below ANSI standards.
The 4-H Club Road location was chosen due to the transmissions already available and it is close to many of the circuits. A substation should be close to transmission, and for this project, the existing transmission is along the side of the road that the substation would be constructed, he explained.
Another important aspect of building a substation is to have minimal impact on the location, he added. This plan for this site is to have a substation that “you wouldn’t even know it’s there,” with it being located farther off the roadway.
Some concerned residents who live near the proposed substation, acknowledged that more power needs to be added in the area, but that they feel that the new substation should go closer to new neighborhoods being constructed in the area.
They also brought up concerns about potential health effects for those who live close to the substation, such as cancer and birth defects.
“They didn’t tell us anything about it,” resident Clifton Brown said.
Gibson said this substation’s purpose is not to provide power for new neighborhoods like the Deer Run subdivision, because a co-op company like DEMCO doesn’t have the funding to build in anticipation of providing power to these unbuilt locations. He added that it’s currently expected that larger utility Entergy would likely get Deer Run if everything goes through.
“The only thing we’ve gone on (with this plan) is our existing system and existing members,” he said. This includes residents north of the proposed site, and not south.
If, however, Deer Run were to select DEMCO as its provider, Gibson said the company would need to immediately look at adding another transformer or whether the substation could support the large subdivision.
Brown added that the land that was purchased for the substation is in a flood zone and “a swamp,” meaning that the utility will need to take measures to build up the site for use.
Another resident brought up the recent zoning ordinance passed in the parish, and said that the area of 4-H that DEMCO purchased is zoned as R1, which would not allow a major utility.
The planning committee said that when DEMCO submitted its plan, the area was not zoned, so the R1 designation does not apply.
Council member Erin Sandefur, who lives in the area the DEMCO substation would be constructed and is representative of the district, said she had not previously heard of the plans for the substation. She brought up a local apiary nearby the proposed site.
“Bees next to a power line–just do the research,” she told the board.
Sandefur also encouraged the legal team to look into the zoning regulations with the recent zoning as R1.
Gibson said the timeline for construction would be about three years.
The substation would be initially rated for a 30 MVA transformer and the company only has the ability to purchase one transformer at this time.
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