MARFA — Citizens, and now County Commissioner Precinct 1 Deirdre Hisler, are continuing to voice their concerns regarding a proposal from American Electric Power (AEP) to build a new substation on the east side of town, requiring the rezone of property from residential to industrial.
AEP is currently under contract to purchase a four-acre residential lot within city limits, catty-corner to the existing Oak Street substation, at the intersection of Oak and Aparejo just before the Alamito Creek bridge for $600,000. The substation slated for an upgrade supplies the City of Marfa with power.
Fred Guerrero, an external affairs manager with AEP based out of San Angelo, told citizens who gathered for a public hearing on the matter in April that the current substation is operating over capacity and AEP has been seeking a site for a new, larger substation for two-plus years. Area residents largely spoke out in opposition of the rezone, citing decreased property values and quality of life. Many questioned why alternative locations, perhaps outside city limits, were not also presented.
Unlike AEP’s 2022 Marfa to Fort Davis transmission line upgrade initiative — which involved several public meetings complete with maps and AEP employees from various departments available for questions — public input for this initiative was never explicitly sought out by AEP. If it were not for the rezone request, which requires public hearings at the Planning & Zoning (P&Z) Commission and City Council levels, the issue may have never been addressed publicly.
Guerrero told The Big Bend Sentinel this week that AEP’s approach to public engagement for the two projects differs because transmission line upgrades are, by nature, more flexible, involving landowner easements and the assessment of multiple preliminary routes while the new substation is a real estate deal. Transmission line upgrades are also larger-scale infrastructure projects compared to the construction of one substation.
“It’d be hard for us to give three locations and be in a contract with three different landowners, and then we pick and choose which property we’re going to purchase,” Guerrero said. “This is just two different processes basically. One is dealing with easements, and one is dealing with purchasing property.”
But that hasn’t stopped some from doing the legwork to present AEP with other viable land options to build a new substation. And public engagement on the issue has been high — several stakeholders have spoken during public comment about the project in at least three different P&Z meetings.
At the latest meeting on April 29, Commissioner Hisler was the first to approach the podium to address P&Z — which is in the process of putting together a report for City Council which will include a recommendation for or against the rezone — to state that community members located two legitimate site alternatives for AEP’s review since the last public meeting.
“I’m not speaking against the current property,” Hisler said. “I’m saying that we all know that we need the substation, but I would like to know that we look at every potential that will possibly work, not only for AEP, but for the community itself. I really think it’s imperative that we don’t just settle on one property, that we look at everything.”
While it is not P&Z’s role to assess site alternatives, and they are limited to the specific rezone request, citizen feedback will be included in their report to council.
Realtor Mary Farley, who helped locate the two potential alternative sites, which are both outside of city limits, meet AEP’s minimum acreage requirements, and front Highway 90, advocated against the rezone. She said homes in Sal Si Puedes, where another large substation is located in a residential neighborhood, have been difficult to move, negatively impacting seller’s profits.
“I have seen what these big substations do to neighborhoods and to the people living in them,” Farley said. “That is one of the oldest neighborhoods with some of the oldest adobes in the city.”
“Marfa is tiny, and I think we need to not kill the goose that lays the golden egg,” she added. “People are coming here because of the way the town feels, they’re not coming here for a substation — a giant Oz to look at that will overwhelm these houses, nobody bought into that.”
Michael Camacho, speaking in his capacity as a professional engineer who frequently works with AEP, said he finds the company to be “extremely collaborative,” and he favors the lot remaining residentially zoned.
The scale of the new substation that AEP is proposing is significantly larger than the current substation, another concern that has been voiced by neighborhood residents. While the current substation is 8,000 square feet, the new one is proposed to be roughly eight times larger at 250 by 250 feet, according to Guerrero, a total of 62,500 square feet.
Guerrero said the expanded footprint is about increasing substation capacity — measured in meg MVAs (megavolt-amperes) — and reliability of the system for future growth.
“From our perspective, it’s not that much larger, because we’re peaking right now at 7 MVA, and the transformer currently is 5 MVA, but we’re going to 15 MVA,” Guerrero said. “So, yes, we’re [tripling] it, but we don’t want to build it to 10 MVA, then we’re already pretty much 70% at capacity. It’s not good practice.”
At the initial public hearing, Guerrero expressed AEP’s willingness to install “an alternative to a chain link fence, within reason” he said, and to add landscaping along the property’s street front.
AEP does not have a back up plan in place if the rezone fails, Guerrero said, but there is a sense of urgency to get the project started because it will take around two years to construct and get the new substation up and running. He said alternatives located by Hisler and Farley will be considered if the rezone is denied by City Council.
“It wouldn’t be right for us to bail out without seeing this one through,” Guerrero said. “If it gets denied, then we’re gonna definitely pursue other properties, and we’re also going to take properties that they recommended into consideration.”
There are some Marfa residents, however, that are eager for the rezone to be approved and for the sale to go through: the current owners of the property. Mike Silva, who currently lives at a residence on the property with his mother, spoke at the April 29 meeting to voice support for the rezone.
He said that the property — which has been in his family for over 100 years — has languished on the market. “If a resident wants to come by it they can still buy it. Nobody stepped forward to buy the property,” Silva said. “We haven’t had any offers but AEP.”
An Alpine lawyer representing some of the site’s current owners, Sarah Sibley Klein, said the multigenerational property has actually been under litigation for some time and the family is ready to sell it and move on. “The siblings are arguing over ownership of the property. It’s been in litigation for several years,” Klein said. “AEP came in, offered to buy it. It would be a big blessing for my clients to be able to sell this and move forward with their lives.”
The project is estimated to cost $7 to $10 million. It will increase tax revenue for local governmental entities including the hospital and school districts, as well as the county, and potentially the city depending on where it is ultimately located.
Some residents have argued that AEP — a company with a value in the upper $50 billion range — can afford to pay a little more for a new substation that doesn’t degrade a residential neighborhood.
But, AEP often counters that the cost of the project will be passed on to AEP’s Texas rate payers, and therefore, costs need to remain as low as possible. Guerrero said AEP can update rates twice a year, but they have to first go through the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for approval.
“We can’t just be overly spending on certain things that we don’t need,” Guerrero said. “It has to be prudent charges, because if not, then they’re not going to approve it, and then we will eat the cost.”
The P&Z Commission will meet on June 12 to finalize their report and issue their recommendation to City Council. The council will then be required to have at least one public hearing on the matter before putting the rezone up for a vote.