emailed today to Duke Energy, SC Docket and NC Docket via SC/NC Office of Public Staff reps --------------------------- Please register my STRONG OPPOSITION to this project. There is no demonstrated/documented need for the lines nor the substation. Duke Energy has  not followed the requirement for posting last Fall,  drew a bunch of lines over 3 year old maps with either no thought as to what or who the optional routes might affect or, worse, has demonstrated a complete lack of caring about the humanity, ecology and economics every single one of these ‘options’ would affect. Either you did due diligence and ignored it or invented this ridiculous project overnight as mentioned in the Charlotte Business Journal (which is completely insane and completely impossible, considering that Duke surveyed the Campobello site LAST SEPTEMBER!!!!!!!!) If you had done due diligence, you then callously ignored reality and pretended nothing was ‘underneath the lines’, then representative acted shocked the people are outraged about this plan, you then invited the horrified people of Upstate SC and WNC to do your research for you…apparently so anything the general public may have missed can be pointed to later as ‘not important’. As a planner and project manager of corporate real estate development projects since 1989 (and none of them were in any way as expansive and expensive or affected as many people as the development Duke plans), I would’ve been fired in 2 seconds flat if I EVER presented a client with a concept and a budget that showed as little justification for the expenditure and inconvenience and risks or if I’d invented a project of a scale such as this in 20 seconds as your representative claimed in this article http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/blog/energy/2015/08/anger-suspicion-dominate-s-c-public-hearing-on.html “Duke has insisted that they only began looking at the possibility of the Asheville plant, and thus the new power line, early this year — after the long-range plans had been filed in September” This speaks to complete ineptitude. There is absolutely no excuse for Duke Energy’s poor planning, poor execution of documentation and ridiculous presentations to affected parties/deflection of questions/inability to answer questions…..what you have done is demonstrate an abysmal lack of conscience and lack of respect for everyone and everything in the affected area. The entire manner in which this project has been approached speaks to nothing but arrogance and assumptions that nothing else matters than Duke’s bottom line…..and tries to disguise this by pointing to ‘potential customer outages’. 90% of the people and real estate affected by this plan ARE NOT DUKE’S CUSTOMERS OR IN IT’S SERVICE AREA and many of us are very glad about that --- I surely do not want to pay for fuel/fees to a company whose project planning is as poor as is Duke Energy’s appears to be. The BLM has put the kibosh on the Atlantic seaboard natural gas pipeline and insisted that proper studies and analysis be done before that project moves forward. This project also requires independent studies of both need and risk, in alignment with the studies the BLM is requiring. Nothing to burn = no need for new lines and no need for the substation. Be creative – come up with in-place systems powering smaller, intermittent areas that can be pumped into the grid. Think geothermal (since y’all are not against digging holes via fracking) and/or solar power (since we are in the South and you can’t get away from the sun if you try). This would be the time to lead instead of what you’ve done so far. There still is time. STOP THIS PROJECT NOW. Take the time to properly evaluate, analyze and plan solutions to bring solutions instead of problems to energy generation and supply. Attached are the signatures – over 5,100 to date (make no mistake – those from out of the area signing have friends, relatives, vacation homes or have simply visited this area and all have reasons for having taken the time to sign this petition – none have arrived at this petition site randomly and taken the time to sign/comment) and comments to date from the STOP DUKE ENERGY change.org petition that I’m sure you have heard about. Pay attention to what these people are saying. You can fix this. Deborah Messmer