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Case Study : AMERICAN TRANSMISSION COMPANY PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT TRAINING
American Transmission Company (ATC) was the first utility company in the United States whose sole mission it is to site, build and operate transmission lines. From the mid-1970s, Wisconsin was known as a difficult place to obtain a permit to construct a transmission line. The Public Service Commission was averse to transmission lines. As a matter of policy it preferred local generation to transmission.
By the mid-1990s Wisconsin was something of an electrical island. In fact when Wisconsin considered deregulation, one of the major reasons it was unable to proceed with deregulation was because it did not have sufficient transmission to be able to draw on alternative sources of generation outside the state. There were virtually no transmission import capabilities.
On June 25, 1998, several Midwestern states and Canadian provinces came close to a large-scale, regional blackout. Power was knocked out for a number of industrial customers. Only extraordinary measures prevented a total blackout in much of the Midwestern U.S. and Canada. This led to a significant reappraisal of the transmission system. One of the outcomes was the establishment of ATC. In was formed with the transmission assets of all the major electric utilities in Wisconsin.
From the very beginning ATC had to address controversy. In its first year of operation ATC took over a project known as Arrowhead Weston that had been begun by Wisconsin Public Service and Minnesota Power. The project had already been approved by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, but public support had fallen off dramatically. All of the counties in which the project would be located now opposed the project. This opposition was expected to play out in continued resistance, such as refusing access to county property, refusal to grant easements over county property, etc.
ATC recognized that it had to approach the project differently than had been done before. ATC mounted a massive communication and public involvement program which eventually gained acceptance of the project. Construction of the project will be completed in 2009.
But ATC recognized that it needed to apply the lessons it learned to all future projects. Among the lessons learned were:
- Engage the Public Early
- Make the Benefits Tangible
- Put Yourself in Their Shoes - Have Empathy
- Take Their Ideas Seriously
- No Surprises
In 2007 ATC recognized that it was going to be siting a number of new projects and it needed to train both current and new staff in the ATC approach to public involvement. ATC hired Jim Creighton to develop an employee orientation guide and public involvement training course. Creighton was pleased to participate because he felt that ATC had developed one of the outstanding public participation approaches in the electric utility field.
Several pilot training courses were conducted during 2008, including a course for ATC senior management. The training courses are now conducted on a nearly quarterly basis by Creighton, Sarah Justus, ATC Local Relations Manager, and David Hovde, ATC Local Relations Representative.
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